How to stop the climate crisis: six lessons from the campaign that saved the ozone

Thirty years ago, all 197 countries got together to ban the gases damaging the Earth's ozone layer. Now we need to unite to combat an even greater threat. What can we learn from 1989?Amid the anti-globalist chest-thumping of Brexit, Donald Trump, and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, it may sound like the stuff of folklore. But there was a time in the recent past when all the countries of the world moved quickly to discuss a common threat, agreed an ambitious plan of action and made it work.The Montreal protocol, which came into effect 30 years ago, was drawn up to address the alarming thinning of the ozone layer in the Earth's stratosphere. It was the first agreement in the history of the United Nations to be ratified by all 197 countries. Since it came into effect on 1 January 1989, more than 99% of the gases responsible for the problem have been eradicated and the "ozone hole" - which, in the late 80s, vied for headline space with the cold war, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Madonna - is receding in the sky and the memory. Continue reading...