The exhibition “Ozone layer protection: global partnership in the global interest”, dedicated to the International Day of the Ozone Layer Protection, has been opened in the documents of international organizations reading room (207g) since September 8 till October 3.
This Day was declared by the UN General Assembly on December 19, 1994 (Resolution 49/114) and is annually celebrated on September 16. The date was chosen not accidentally: 36 countries, including the USSR, signed Montreal protocol on substances that destruct the ozone layer – a document, according to which member countries must restrict and further stop the production of these substances on September 16, 1987.
The ozone layer is a thin gas shield, which protects Earth from detrimental specter of sun beams and protects the life on the planet. It spreads across the Earth like a cover, which goes up in the space. If the layer depletes, then danger for the biosphere and all the life will appear. Skin cancer, blindness and other diseases can appear because of ultraviolet rays.
In the 80s of the 20th century, scientists marked that the ozone concentration depletes in some places, and in some regions of Earth this depletion is catastrophically fast. That time, the notion ozone hole appeared and it was over the Antarctic region. After the research, scientists found out that widely spread in the industry chemical substances of the chloro fluoro carbon group are extremely dangerous for the ozone layer. Scientific confirmation of this fact made the international community create a mechanism of cooperation in the creation of protective measures.
Vienna Convention on the Ozone Layer Protection was adopted and signed on March 22, 1985, and Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed in September 1987. The document was signed by 197 countries.
The main goal of the Montreal Protocol is the ozone layer protection through restrictions of the global production and consumption of the ozone destructive substances with the final aim to liquidate them on the basis of scientific knowledge and technological information.
Experts also state that liquidation of the ozone destructive substances helps in the fight against the climate change, as many chemicals, which are controlled by the treaty, were recognized as sources of the global warming.
Montreal Protocol controls almost 100 chemicals in several categories. Every group of chemicals has a schedule of the phased abstention from its production and consumption in order to stop using them completely.
The 2014 research prepared by the UN Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization experts showed that the ozone layer will be restored in the nearest decades thanks to the abstention from a range of chemicals.
The Republic of Belarus was among the first to sign and ratify Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol. The laws of the Republic of Belarus “On Protection of Environment”, “On Protection of Atmospheric Air” contain demands on decrease and further abstention of chemicals usage, which is harmful for the ozone layer.
The exhibition presents more than 60 documents in Russian and English. The majority of the exposition is documents of international organizations: books, brochures, mimeographed UN materials, periodicals, booklets.
The exposition includes the following sections:
- International and regional cooperation and interaction in the area of the ozone layer protection, international legal documents on the ozone layer protection.
- The ozone layer protection is the basis of the life on Earth protection.
- The ozone layer and the problem of the atmosphere pollution.
- The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect and the climate change.
The exhibition will be interesting to scientific workers, teachers, students and postgraduates of ecological, biological and geographic specializations, specialists in environmental resources management, and to everybody interested in ecological problems and the problem of the ozone layer protection on our planet.
Useful links
- Ozone hole and science
- International Day of the Ozone Layer Protection
- Ozonedestructing substances
- UNEP
- UN and sustainability
- Climate change
- International Environment Day (June 5)
Documents
- Protocol for the struggle with acidification, eutrophication and surface ozone layer to the 1979 Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (1999)
- Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987)
- Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985)
- Conventions and agreements on the environment
- Declarations on the environment
- Atmposphere protection (Chapter 9 of the XXI century agenda)
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