POL 32700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Ozone Depletion, Environmental Policy, Multilateral Environmental Agreement
10 Jan 2020
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9.2:
1. What is stratospheric ozone? What is the ozone layer? Why is it important? What
depletes it? What would be the impacts of significant ozone depletion?
a. Stratospheric ozone is the naturally occurring ozone that is located in the
stratosphere that helps shield the Earth from UV radiation. The ozone layer is this
“blanket” of stratospheric ozone that absorbs the UV light. Without this layer we
would experience more cases of skin cancer and cataracts in humans and plants,
animals, and ecosystems would suffer damages as well. The use of human made
chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), HCFCs, and other ozone depleting
substances, is depleting this layer.
2. Why is the ozone regime an important regime to study? What lessons can we learn from
this regime?
a. This regime is important to study because it has been very successful. The levels
of CFC and other ODS have dropped significantly and some have almost been
eliminated. If countries continue to follow through, the ozone layer will fully
recover. We now can see that we can cooperate to fix large transboundary issues
that might be complex.
3. Why are environmental regimes sometimes, but not always, effective?
a. There are many factors that determine the effectiveness of regimes, the reasons
that the ozone regime were successful was the burst of scientific understanding
and changing the perspectives of the public and policy makers. Also, countries
came on board and supported the regime when they realized that they could make
more profit making ODSs substitutes. (changing economic perspectives) If
regimes lack scientific understanding about the problem, or the problem is
complex and hard to explain it is hard to gain support. Basically successful
regimes must work around obstacles present to gain support of the regime.
4. What are some obstacles (systemic, procedural, etc.) to effective global environmental
policy?
Document Summary
What would be the impacts of significant ozone depletion: stratospheric ozone is the naturally occurring ozone that is located in the stratosphere that helps shield the earth from uv radiation. Blanket of stratospheric ozone that absorbs the uv light. Without this layer we would experience more cases of skin cancer and cataracts in humans and plants, animals, and ecosystems would suffer damages as well. What lessons can we learn from this regime: this regime is important to study because it has been very successful. The levels of cfc and other ods have dropped significantly and some have almost been eliminated. If countries continue to follow through, the ozone layer will fully recover. Instead we have states with varying interests trying to cooperate. This proves problems because it can create free riding and you now have the issue of the lowest common denominator problem when making policies.
