Ozone layer treaty will slow climate change by protecting plants

By Adam Vaughan

The international treaty to protect the ozone layer may have the inadvertent benefit of preventing up to a further 1°C of warming this century, through the protection it gives to plants.

The Montreal protocol of 1987 banned ozone-destroying CFCs to stop an increase in ultraviolet radiation breeching Earth’s atmosphere and threatening the health of humans and ecosystems. The ozone “hole” has since begun to recover and is expected to have healed by the …