Call for Cooperation

CIWEM calls for December's UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to strengthen international agreements on climate change to ensure greenhouse emissions are capped and reduced in a meaningful manner.

CIWEM's Executive Director, Nick Reeves, says: "The protection of the ozone layer is an environmental and public health victory. But now we need government representatives worldwide, academic institutions, industry and civil society to work together to fight climate change. As scientists have predicted we are experiencing, simultaneously, extreme weather events around the world, which are causing unprecedented drought conditions, water scarcity, melting of the polar ice caps, rising sea levels, coastal erosion and flooding. There is no time to lose - the era of procrastination is over. Unless we cut our carbon emissions and invest in adaptation measures, we face a desperate fight for survival. We must tackle the causes of climate change, as well as deal with the inescapable consequences. The COP 15 must result in an ambitious global agreement incorporating all the countries of the world."

In the 1980s, computer models predicted a global disaster if no action was taken to protect the ozone layer against synthetic ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). On 16th September, the UN International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer commemorates the signing of the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol, which are the most widely ratified multilateral environmental agreements to date. Thanks to the 191 nations working together, a full recovery of the protective ozone layer is expected between 2060 and 2075.