58 March 2015
I
N ‘The Magnificent Seven Deadly
Sins’, a comedy made in 1971,
Spike Milligan portrays Sloth as
a tramp trying to get through a
farm gate. This simple task is ren-
dered almost impossible by the fact that
he can’t be bothered to take his hands
out of his pockets and open the latch. He
tries everything: getting over it, under
it, through it, hurling himself at it, risk-
ing mortal injury, expending far more
energy and effort than the obvious solu-
tion would require.
This is how environmental diplo-
macy works. Governments gather to
discuss an urgent problem and propose
everything except the obvious solution
– legislation. The last thing our self-hat-
ing states will contemplate is what they
are empowered to do: govern. They will
ENVIRONMENT
Also in this section:
The experiential economy 60
Fitzwilliam St redevelopment 64
Back to school 67
2°C 68
If the ozone hole
had been discovered
ten years later,
governments would
have done nothing.
By George Monbiot
Ozone
layer
luckier
than the
climate
March 2015 59
launch endless talks and commissions,
devise elaborate market mechanisms,
even offer massive subsidies to encour-
age better behaviour, rather than simply
say “we’re stopping this”.
This is what’s happening with man-
made climate change. The obvious
solution, in fact the only real and lasting
solution, is to decide that most fossil fuel
reserves will be left in the ground, while
alternative energy sources
are rapidly developed to fill
the gap. Everything else is
talk. But not only will gov-
ernments not contemplate
this step, they won’t even
discuss it. They would rather
risk mortal injury than open
the gate.
The same applies to
biodiversity, fisheries, neon-
icotinoid pesticides and a
host of other issues affecting
the living planet: negotiators
have tried to work their way
under, over and through the
gate, while ensuring that the
barrier remains in place.
It wasn’t always like this.
There was a time when they
took their hands out of their
pockets.
Last year the UN announced
that the ozone layer is recovering so fast
that, across most of the planet, it will be
more or less mended by the middle of
the century. Ozone is the atmospheric
chemical that blocks ultra-violet-B radi-
ation, protecting us from skin cancer
and from damage to our eyes and
immune systems, and protecting plants
from destruction. It’s coming back, and
this is a great advertisement for active
government.
Like man-made global warming,
the problem was forecast before it was
observed. In the case of global warming,
Svante Arrhenius predicted in 1896
that the “carbonic acid” (carbon diox-
ide) produced by burning fossil fuels
was sufficient to raise the global tem-
perature. In 1974, before any noticeable
issues had arisen, the chemists Frank
Rowland and Mario Molina predicted
that the breakdown of chlorofluorocar-
bons – chemicals used for refrigeration
and as aerosol propellants – in the strat-
osphere would destroy atmospheric
ozone. Eleven years later, ozone deple-
tion near the South Pole was detected by
the British Antarctic Survey.
Had governments not acted, the
UN estimates, “atmospheric levels of
ozone depleting substances could have
increased tenfold by 2050”.
The action governments took was
direct and uncomplicated: ozone-de-
pleting chemicals would be banned. The
Montreal Protocol came into force in
1989, and within seven years use of the
most dangerous substances had been
more or less eliminated. Every member
of the United Nations has
ratified the treaty.
This was despite a sus-
tained campaign of lobbying
and denial by the chemicals
industry – led by Dupont
– which bears strong similar-
ities to the campaign by fossil
fuel companies to prevent
action on climate change.
The Montreal Protocol is
one of those victories that
allows us to forget. We are
not wired to recognise an
absence; we don’t spend our
days celebrating the eradica-
tion of smallpox, or the fact
that dipht heria no longer r av-
ages our cities. But were the
protocol not i n force, sc arcely
a day would pass when the
problem did not impinge on
our consciousness. The UN
maintains that the protocol “will have
prevented 2 million cases of skin cancer
annually by 2030.
There are still issues to resolve. Ear-
lier this year, scientists detected four
new ozone-depleting chemicals in the
atmosphere, which are likely to be either
industrial feedstocks or black market
products. There will always be cheats
and freeloaders, but the treaty can keep
evolving to address new threats.
The Montreal Protocol has famously
done more to prevent global warming
(which was not its purpose) than the
Kyoto Protocol, which was designed to
prevent it. This is because some of the
chemicals the ozone treaty bans are also
powerful greenhouse gases.
So what’s the difference? Why is the
Montreal Protocol effective while the
Kyoto Protocol and subsequent efforts
to prevent climate breakdown are not?
Part of the answer must be that the
fossil fuel industry is much bigger than
the halogenated hydrocarbon industry,
and its lobbying power much greater.
Retiring fossil fuel is technically just
as feasible as replacing ozone-deplet-
ing chemicals, given the wide range
of technologies for generating useful
energy, but politically much tougher.
But I don’t think that’s the only factor.
When the Montreal Protocol was negoti-
ated, during the mid-1980s, the notion
that governments could intervene in the
market was under sustained assault,
but not yet conquered. Even Margaret
Thatcher, while speaking the language
of market fundamentalism, was diri-
giste by comparison to her successors:
enough at any rate to be a staunch sup-
porter of the Montreal Protocol. It is
almost impossible to imagine David
Cameron championing such a measure.
For that matter, given the current state
of Congress, it’s more or less impossible
to see Barack Obama doing it either.
By the mid-1990s, the doctrine of
market fundamentalism – also known
as neo-liberalism – had almost all gov-
ernments by the throat. Any politicians
who tried to protect the weak from the
powerful or the natural world from
industrial destruction were punished by
the corporate media or the markets.
This extreme political doctrine – that
governments must cease to govern –
has made direct, uncomplicated action
almost unthinkable. Just as the extent
of humankind’s greatest crisis – climate
breakdown – became clear, governments
willing to address it were everywhere
being disciplined or purged.
Since then, this doctrine has caused
financial crises and economic col-
lapse, the destruction of livelihoods,
mountainous debt, insecurity and the
devastation of the living planet. It has, as
Thomas Piketty demonstrates, replaced
enterprise with patrimonial capitalism:
neo-liberal economies rapidly become
dominated by rent and inherited wealth,
in which social mobility stalls. But
despite these evident failures, despite
the fact that the claims of market fun-
damentalism have been disproven as
dramatically as those of state commu-
nism, somehow this zombie ideology
staggers on. Were the ozone hole to have
been discovered today, governments
would have announced talks about talks
about talks, and we would still be dis-
cussing whether something should be
done as our skin turned to crackling.
Tackling any environmental crisis,
especially climate breakdown, requires
a resumption of political courage: the
courage just to open the sodding gate. •
This article first appeared on the
Guardian’s website; www.monbiot.com
The Montreal
Protocol has
famously
done more to
prevent global
warming
(which was not
its purpose)
than the Kyoto
Protocol,
which was
designed to
prevent it
“
Environmental
diplomacy
entails
Governments
gathering
to discuss
an urgent
problem and
proposing
everything
except
legislation
“

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