Embedding Ozone Protection in the Sustainable Development Agenda

UNEP/OzL.Pro.WG.1/33/INF/4

Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to
the Montreal Protocol on Substances that
Deplete the Ozone Layer

Thirty-third meeting

Bangkok, 24–28 June 2013

Embedding ozone protection in the sustainable development agenda

Note by the Secretariat

The annex to the present note contains a report by the secretariat on embedding ozone protection in the sustainable development agenda. It is presented as received, without formal editing.

Annex

Embedding ozone protection in the sustainable development agenda

Introduction

Major initiatives are underway to articulate a new agenda for development, including a set of sustainable development goals. The purpose of this paper is to provide information and raise awareness of international processes to define a sustainable development agenda, the importance of goals, targets and indicators to sustainable development processes, and the relevance and inclusion of stratospheric ozone protection in these processes.

By its very nature, sustainable development covers a vast array of issues. Articulated in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, sustainable development was envisaged as having three interdependent ‘pillars’ – social, economic and environmental. At the same time, WCED called for new ways to measure and assess progress.[1] Surprisingly, although means to do this have been tried and tested for a range of components, there is up to now no single, universally accepted set of assessment metrics for sustainable development.

With renewed interest generated by the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development and the 2015 deadline looming for the Millennium Development Goals, the international community is gearing up to agreeing a new development agenda. There is already considerable consensus that the framework should include goals, targets and indicators and, for the sake of current discussions, the following definitions have been circulated.[2]

Goal: expresses an ambitious, but specific, commitment. It can relate to a number of targets but should be as specific as possible – laying out a single challenge or ambition.

Targets: Quantified sub-components that will contribute in a major way to the achievement of a goal. Targets translate the ambition of goals into practical outcomes. They should always be measurable and easy to understand.

Indicators: The exact metric by which you know if the target has been met. Multiple indicators are often used to allow the target to be measured in several dimensions (e.g. by gender or geography). Indicators can quantify and communicate complex information in a simple concise way, show trends and progress over time, simplify reporting requirements and replace extensive data or descriptive text.[3],[4]

Embedding ozone protection in the sustainable development agenda

Directions were set at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (the Stockholm Conference) for very many critical pathways to explore and manage the environment within the context of human development. For example, the Action Plan for the Human Environment[5]recognized the importance of up-to-date scientific information, and of technology transfer. It also contained a major section on the ‘identification and control of pollutants of broad international significance’ recommending, inter alia, international programmes for assessing pollutant sources, pathways, exposures and risks, long term monitoring of atmospheric constituents through programmes guided by the World Meteorological Organization, and coordinating international cooperation for taking measures on pollution control.

Whilststratospheric ozone was not singled out as an issue at Stockholm, recommendations such as these may have smoothed the path for the subsequent timely establishment of an international process to deal with this issue. From the early 1970s scientists were aware of the possibility that human actions could deplete the ozone layer and the damaging effects on humans and the biosphere that could result. They warned of the serious implications if manufactured chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrogen oxide emissions from aircraft continued unabated. Further research implicated additional ozone-depleting substances. Model-based assessments in the early 1980s suggested that serious depletion of the ozone layer was likely by the mid 21st century. However, ground-based measurements from stations in the Global Atmospheric Watch network actually detected severe destruction of stratospheric ozone over Antarctica in the mid-1980s. The CFCs used as refrigerants, insulators, cleaning agents and spray can propellants were identified as some of the most destructive agents.[6]

The international community reacted promptly to this scientific evidence. The framework Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1985 with a legal regime, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, adopted in 1987.[7]The number of signatories rose rapidly after these dates and by September 2009 all 196 nations in the world were Parties to the Convention and its Protocol.[8]

The Montreal Protocol has a clear and detailed compliance regime under which each party is required to report to the Ozone Secretariat its annual production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances (ODS). These data are used to measure ODS reductions against baseline data and therefore assess whether countries are meeting their phase-out obligations and they also determine developing country status. The quality of submitted data is reported to have improved over recent years.[9]

These data have been instrumental in enabling the implementation and impact of the Montreal Protocol to be tracked against agreed goals and targets at both national and global levels and, taking new scientific evidence into consideration, to determine whether overall adjustments are needed to the Protocol. Using a simplified example to illustrate - the overall goal of the Vienna Convention is to protect human health and the environment against adverse effects resulting from modifications of the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol sets overall targetsfor the recovery of the ozone layer, and changes in the abundance of ozone-depleting gases in the atmosphere, and sets targets for individual countries to phase-out the use of designated ODSs by a certain date. Indicators such as annual consumption of ozone depleting substances, based on the data provided by countries, can then be used to assess whether these targets will be met.

The goal/target/indicator framework is now a widely accepted tool for assessing and monitoring progress towards sustainable development.

After the 1972 Stockholm Conference sustainable development awareness and governance expanded considerably at local, national, regional and international levels.[10]The need for the integration of economic development, natural resources management and protection and social equity was introduced for the first time by the 1987 Brundtland Report Our Common Future and it became central in framing the discussions at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit orRio Conference). Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, were both adopted by the 178 Governments at UNCED.The Rio Declaration established 27 compact principles intended to guide sustainable development around the world.They promoted concepts such as the centrality of human beings to the concerns of sustainable development (Principle 1), the importance of the environment for current and future generations and its equal footing with development (Principles 3 and 4), the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (Principle 7) and the two critical economic principles of polluter pays (Principle 16) and the precautionary approach (Principle 15).[11]

Agenda 21[12] is a comprehensive plan of action for the 21st Century to be taken globally, nationally and locally by Governments, Major Groups and UN organizations in every area in which humans impact on the environment. It describes a global partnership and balanced and integrated approach towards sustainable development, setting out on a voluntary basisthe rationale for action, objectives, activities and means of implementationfor numerousProgramme Areas within 40 chapters. Chapter 9, Protection of the Atmosphere, contains a specific Programme Area on preventing stratospheric ozone depletion. Two objectives are listed – to realize the objectives of the Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol and to develop strategies for mitigating adverse effects of increased ultraviolet radiation at the Earth’s surface.

Agenda 21 also cited the need for evidence-based indicators of sustainable development to track progress and support decision-making[13] and called for a high-level Commission on Sustainable Development(CSD) to monitor progress and ensure effective follow-up of Agenda 21.The CSD was established in December 1992[14]. From its inception, the Commission, with 53 Member States at any one time, was highly participatory in structure, engaging a wide range of official stakeholders and partnersin its formal proceedings.

Several processes to identify appropriate indicators for Agenda 21 were initiated early on. An Intergovernmental Working Group on the Advancement of Environmental Statistics prepared a paper on Environmental Indicators for CSD3 in 1995. The ‘Consumption of ozone depleting substances’ was suggested as one indicator for Chapter 9[15]. By this time there were very many indicator development initiatives underway at national, organizational and international levels. At the same CSD session a broader UN process proposed a menu of Agenda 21 indicators, also including the ‘consumption of ODS’ and proposed a further programme of work, including the development of methodology sheets which could then be used voluntarily by member states as well as the CSD.[16] CSD3 approved the programme of work on indicators put forward in this document.[17]

The Division for Sustainable Development and the Statistics Division, both under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), in close collaboration with experts from international organisations and UN member states, subsequently developed a set of 134 national indicators of sustainable development (CSD Indicators) and methodology sheets[18] reflecting the issues in Agenda 21 chapters.

Six indicators were identified for Chapter 9: Protection of the Atmosphere:

• Emissions of greenhouse gases (DF)
• Emissions of sulphur dioxides (DF)
• Emissions of nitrogen oxides (DF)
• Consumption of Ozone Depleting Substances (DF)
• Ambient concentration of pollutants in urban areas (S)
• Expenditure on air pollution abatement (R)

Driving Force (DF) indicators represent human activities, processes and patterns that impact on sustainable development. State (S) indicators indicate the ‘state’ of sustainable development. Response (R) indicators indicate policy options and other responses to changes in the state of sustainable development.[19]It should be noted that the required data for the ozone indicator were already available for most countries due to their reporting obligations to the Ozone Secretariat under Article 7 of the Montreal Protocol.

The CSD Indicators and their methodology were revised twice, in 2001 and 2006. Originally developed on the basis of the pressure-state-response-model[20]the indicators were modified in 2006 to reflect themes and sub-themes.

Progress on Agenda 21

Holding meetings every year from 1993, the CSD worked through huge numbers of descriptive reports on Agenda 21 implementation. The Secretary-General’s report on Protection of the Atmosphere for the fourth session of the CSD in 1996 (CSD4), for example, noted that “the Montreal Protocol with its substantive amendments and adjustments is widely viewed as a landmark for international cooperation and embodies many of the core principles of Agenda 21.”[21] It identified the process as a good example of the precautionary principle in action, noted the marked decrease in overall production and consumption of ODSs but also drew attention to the issue of illegal trade in CFCs and the continued increase in CFC consumption in some countries. Considerable further details were provided in an additional document.[22] The following year, the Montreal Protocol again featured as a success story in the report on overall progress in the five-years since UNCED.[23]

Further reviews of Chapter 9 featured in the CSD sessions held in 2001, when the CSD acted as a preparatory committee for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)[24], and in the 2006[25] and 2007[26] sessions, (CSD14 and 15) by which time the CSD was reviewing clusters of thematic issues on a 2-year cycle evaluating progress during the first (Review) year end deciding on measures to speed up implementation overcome obstacles and constraints in the second (Policy) year. On all these occasions science-based informationshowed that the phase-out of ODS was on schedule, and that the phase out would have positive impacts on reducing adverse human health impacts. At the same time it was recognized that some issues remained to be addressed, such as ongoing illegal trade in ODS, the significant global warming potential of some ODS alternatives, and the need for further research into methyl bromide alternatives.

It is interesting that, having agreed to develop indicators to track the follow-up on Agenda 21,the CSD never actually used them. A 2013 report of the Secretary General to the 67th Session of the General Assembly on Lessons learned from the Commission on Sustainable Development[27] reiterates the consultative process that resulted in the indicator set and its methodologies and concludes: “To some extent this effort was successful as a number of countries compile data on these indicators for use in decision-making processes. However, the lack of systematic monitoring and interaction between national and international levels has hampered assessments of how effective national sustainable development strategies and indicators have been in supporting the implementation of agreements on sustainable development.” (paragraph 25).

Despite the brief and relatively superficial coverage of stratospheric ozone in CSD reports as compared to the very comprehensive annual reviews by the Parties to the Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol[28] the fact that it was included as part of Agenda 21has undoubtedly raised awareness of ozoneand its related treaties amongst a much wider audience than would otherwise have been the case. In addition, as part of Agenda 21, it was automatically considered early on as a sustainable development issue, with social and economic dimensions.And although the indicator on consumption of ODS was not explicitly reported to the CSD in the context of Agenda 21 it was adopted for use in assessing progress in another highly visible international initiative, the Millennium Development Goals.

Returning to the oversight of Agenda 21, member states met at a special session of UNGA in 1997toreview progress over the five years since UNCED. Results were not encouraging and the documentation records that “we are deeply concerned that the overall trends withrespect to sustainable development are worse today than they were in1992.” Member states then committed to ensuring that the next comprehensive reviewof Agenda 21 in the year 2002 would demonstrate greater measurable progressin achieving sustainable development and set out aProgramme for theFurther Implementation of Agenda 21to achieve that goal.[29]

Following the decadal sequence of global environmentalconferences that started in 1972, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)was held in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa in September 2002.

The full implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the commitments to the Rio Principles, were strongly reaffirmed at WSSD as were commitments to internationally agreed development goals. The mainstreaming of the three dimensions of sustainable development in development policies was advanced at all levels through the adoption of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI).[30]

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) – also known asRio+20–brought heads of state and high level representatives together in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[31]Rio+20 was charged with securing renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assessing progress and implementation gaps in meeting previously agreed commitments, and addressing new and emerging challenges. In addition to receiving pledges for more than $500 billion towards sustainable development initiatives[32] UNCED resulted in an outcome document The Future We Want, which was subsequently endorsed by the General Assembly in July 2012.[33]

In the run-up to RIO+20 there was growing support for the elaboration of a new set of goals for sustainable development. One of the main results of the Rio+20 Conference was the agreement by member states to launch a process to develop a set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post-2015 development agenda. The SDGs will be adopted by the General Assembly.

Millennium Development Goals and their indicators

In April 2000 the UN Secretary General presented his millennium report, Wethe Peoples: The role of the United Nations in the 21stCentury, to the General Assembly.[34]255. The ozone layer received prominence in the very first section of Part V of the report on ‘Sustaining our Future’, quote: “The natural environment performs for us, free of charge, basic services without which our species could not survive.The ozone layer screens out ultraviolet rays from the sun that harm people, animals and plants……But we are degrading, and in some cases destroying, the ability of the environment to continue providing these life-sustaining services for us.” [35]“Our goal must be to meet the economic needs of the present without compromising the ability of the planet to provide for the needs of future generations.”[36]“Perhaps the single most successful international environmental agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol, in which states accepted the need to phase out the use of ozone-depleting substances”.[37]

In September of the same year189 member states of the United Nations participated in the Millennium Summitand adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration[38]. The Declarationreaffirmed support for the principles of sustainable development including those set out in Agenda 21 and set out a series of commitments relating, inter alia, to development, poverty eradication and protecting the environment. Many of these commitments were drawn from the agreements and resolutions of world conferences and summits organized by the United Nations during the preceding decade. Several of them articulated specific time-bound targets, mainly to be achieved by 2015. The Declaration also recognized that success in meeting the objectives depended on good governance at national and international level, as well as adequate funding, and called for a regular review of progress by the General Assembly.