Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/021792/0217331.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 11KB | 218 lines

                Y&╤                            :=                            ╚ENVIRONMENT, Page 64

COVER STORIES

How Do You Patch a Hole in the Sky That Could Be as Big as Alaska?



Ridding the world of ozone-destroying chemicals is a huge, costly
and complex task requiring unprecedented international cooperation
-- but it can be done

By PHILIP ELMER-DEWITT -- Reported by Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi,
Clive Mutiso/Nairobi and Dick Thompson/Washington


    Think for a moment about the world's 1 billion
refrigerators and its hundreds of millions of air conditioners.
Picture mountains of foam insulation, seat cushions, furniture
stuffing and carpet padding. Imagine streams of cleaning fluids,
rivers of industrial solvents, wafting clouds of aerosol spray.

    Ridding the planet of the millions of tons of
ozone-depleting chemicals contained in that vision is not just
a big job; it may be the biggest job the nations of the world
have ever taken on. In the 60 years since Du Pont began
marketing the miracle refrigerant it called Freon,
chlorofluorocarbons have worked their way deep into the
machinery of what much of the world thinks of as modern life --
air-conditioned homes and offices, climate-controlled shopping
malls, refrigerated grocery stores, squeaky-clean computer
chips. Extricating the planet from the chemical burden of that
high-tech life-style -- for both those who enjoy it and those
who aspire to it -- will require not just technical ingenuity
but extraordinary diplomatic skill.

    The technical challenge is relatively straightforward. The
goal is to find substances and processes that can replace
CFC-based systems without doing further harm to the stratosphere
-- an endeavor that is well under way. In fact, it may turn out
to be easier than anyone expected. Except for medical aerosols,
some fire-fighting equipment and certain metal-cleaning
applications, there are now effective substitutes for virtually
every ozone-depleting chemical. Some cost quite a bit more, and
others pose different, if less severe, environmental problems.
But in a surprising number of cases, the new processes are
actually cheaper and better than the old.

    Replacing CFCs in newly built equipment, however, is only
half the job. Virtually every existing refrigerator and air
conditioner is a CFC reservoir. The chemicals are not a problem
as long as they continue to circulate within an appliance. But
if the machine is carelessly drained, junked or damaged, the
CFCs can escape to attack the ozone. The real task for those
countries that invested heavily in CFCs in the past is to
develop systems for recovering and recycling the chemicals they
have already used.

    The diplomatic challenge is trickier. For the U.S., Europe
and other industrialized regions to do right by the
stratosphere is one thing. They bear direct responsibility for
most of the damage that has been done, and they can best afford
the costs attached to switching technologies. But what about the
countries of the Second and Third Worlds? Many of them are just
beginning to enjoy the comforts of CFC technology, and they
cannot easily pay for a changeover.

    The progress made so far is encouraging. According to the
U.N. Environment Program, which oversees the Montreal Protocol,
there has been a 40% drop in CFC consumption since 1986, largely
because of accelerated phaseouts in industrialized countries.
There has been a similar reduction in the halons -- the
ozone-hostile chemicals used in fire fighting. In 1990 the
Montreal Protocol was broadened to include two potent industrial
solvents not covered in the original agreement: methyl
chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. U.N. officials are now
convinced that the developed world will have stopped making the
most prevalent kinds of ozone depleters by 1995 or 1997,
depending on the particular substance, and that developing
countries may be able to catch up in five to eight more years
-- not the 10 extra years once anticipated.

    Some of the countries that resisted CFC controls at first
are taking the lead today -- sometimes to their own surprise.
Germany, which was dragged by its heels to the initial Montreal
meeting, became the first country to establish a system for
recycling CFCs from discarded refrigerators. Sweden, Switzerland
and the Netherlands are among other countries working on their
own refrigerant-recycling programs. Japan, a major consumer of
CFC solvents for electronics manufacturing, was leery of changes
that might raise the cost of doing business. Now Matsushita, NEC
and Sony all have programs to eliminate the use of CFCs by 1995,
five years in advance of the protocol deadline.

    While there has been some backpedaling at the highest
levels of the Bush Administration, U.S. corporations are taking
the initiative in getting rid of their ozone-reducing
chemicals. The Hughes Corp. now uses a chemical derived from
lemon juice (yes, lemon juice) instead of CFCs in its
weapons-manufacturing program. Northern Telecom, a Canadian firm
that does most of its business in the U.S., has developed
soldering processes that do not need cleaning and has thus
become the first major North American company to end reliance
on CFCs throughout its operations. "Business is moving faster
than the laws require," says Stephen Andersen, an EPA official
who co-chairs a Montreal Protocol assessment panel. "They're
finding they can save money and improve performance."

    One uniquely American problem -- the 82 million U.S. cars
equipped with air conditioners -- inspired an enterprising
solution. Some automobile mechanics found a patented but
uncommercialized machine that enables repair shops to recycle
CFC-12 from auto air conditioners rather than vent it into the
air. Then they persuaded the Big Three U.S. automakers to
require company-owned service centers to install the new device.
As a result, 160,000 of these machines had been sold as of Jan.
1. "The quicker we get out of these CFCs, the better off we're
going to be," says Simon Oulouhojian, a service-station owner
in Upper Darby, Pa. "We've got kids too."

    Mexico and Thailand have announced that they would like to
phase out CFCs on the same timetable as the developed nations.
One factor spurring them on may be the likelihood that exports
not meeting strict ozone-friendly standards could soon face
international sanctions. But there is also grass-roots pressure
in some developing countries. In Mexico, for example, consumer
complaints persuaded local manufacturers that it was time to
begin removing CFCs from aerosol products. The changeover
happened so quickly that when one company ran out of labels
saying THIS IS A CFC-FREE PRODUCT, store managers rejected the
shipment, knowing that many of their customers would leave
unlabeled spray cans on the shelf.

    The countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union have tougher problems. Faced with a collapsing economy,
rising crime and open fighting among its members, the new
Commonwealth of Independent States has pushed environmental
issues far down on its list of priorities. The Russian people
show no special interest in the ozone problem. Whatever aerosol
cans and foam products make it to market in Moscow these days
are immediately snapped up by buyers who either do not know
about CFCs or do not particularly care.

    In Czechoslovakia and Poland, most households have
CFC-based refrigerators and others badly want them. Neither
country has put in place a system for recovering the coolants.
Says an official at the Ministry of Environmental Protection in
Warsaw: "If we are not able to solve the problem of disposal of
used bottles, plastic items and batteries, what can we say about
the proper disposal of refrigerators?"

    The task is also daunting in the rapidly developing
countries of China and India. Together they now contribute 3%
of the world's burden of ozone-depleting chemicals, but their
potential demand for CFC products is so great that without the
cooperation of both countries, any plan to heal the ozone hole
is destined to fail. China's 800 million consumers, encouraged
by more than 10 years of economic reform, are ravenous for
luxury items such as aerosol cosmetics and air conditioners, and
Chinese industry cannot make them fast enough. In the early
1980s China produced 500,000 refrigerators a year; now it churns
out some 8 million annually. The Chinese environmental
protection agency says it wants the country to switch to non-CFC
technologies, but does not have the authority to make industry
do so.

    India, which in the early 1970s invested heavily in the
purchase of Western refrigeration technology, today not only
manufactures its own refrigerators but exports CFC compressors.
Says Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, India's best-known
environmental group: "Our development strategies cannot be
sacrificed for the destruction of the environment caused by the
West." And then there is the cost of changing technologies.
"India recognizes the threat to the environment and the
necessity for a global burden sharing to control it," says
Maneka Gandhi, former Minister of the Environment, who
represented India at the Montreal Protocol negotiations. "But
is it fair that the industrialized countries who are
responsible for the ozone depletion should arm-twist the poorer
nations into bearing the cost of their mistakes?"

    Both India and China refused to sign the original Montreal
Protocol, but they were placated by the creation in 1990 of a
special $240 million fund, financed by the developed countries,
to help developing nations switch to CFC-free technologies.
China signed the revised protocol last year, and India now
expects to follow suit. The U.S. initially balked at the idea
of ozone-linked foreign aid but agreed to put up 25% of the
money after language was added to the agreement stipulating that
American willingness to help countries pay for CFC phaseouts
would not be taken as a precedent in solving other environmental
problems.

    Europe, Japan and the U.S. still need to set up a large,
separate fund to help the former Soviet Union and other East
European countries wean themselves from CFCs. That will be
difficult to do during hard economic times. But what is the
alternative? What price is too high to protect the irreplaceable
atmosphere shared by East and West, by South and North?