A landmark environmental agreement that helped close the ozone hole in the 1990s has led to new chemical contaminants forming in the atmosphere and accumulating on land, researchers say.
A landmark environmental agreement that helped close the ozone hole in the 1990s has led to new chemical contaminants forming in the atmosphere and accumulating on land, researchers say.
“The Montreal Protocol was probably one of the best regulations out there to involve all the countries at once,” said Heidi Pickard, one of nine researchers to publish the findings in a paper Thursday.
“But, of course, you have these unintended consequences.”
The Montreal Protocol, which came into force in 1989, banned chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that were used in refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosol sprays. They were destroying the ozone layer, which helps protect the planet from damaging ultraviolet solar radiation.
It has been signed by 197 parties.
But the chemicals used to replace the banned ones are breaking down in the atmosphere into new contaminants known a