Science: Ozone Defense

An agreement to speed up the phaseout of harmful CFCs

Getting large numbers of nations to agree on anything, especially delicate policy issues, is no easy job. But now that scientists have convinced policymakers that the earth's ozone layer is in grave danger, governments are moving with unusual speed and resolve. Meeting in Helsinki last week, representatives from 86 countries said they favored a total ban on certain chlorofluorocarbons, man-made chemicals believed to be destroying the ozone, / by the end of the century at the latest. That goes far beyond the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which called for a 50% cut in CFC manufacture by 1999.

At Helsinki the conferees were...

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