Earth's Ozone Layer Is Getting Wiped Away, And All Due To CFC Pollution From China

Ever since we clawed a hole in the ozone with our pollutants, the restoration of it has been at the forefront of global environmental efforts, with various countries working to phase out the chemicals that deplete it.

So it's shocking to hear not everyone is complying.

Images courtesy: NASA

Last year, scientists discovered that the ozone layer was being depleted once again, thanks to emissions of one of the banned chemicals, CFC-11. Finally, it looks like researchers have pinpointed the source of the pollutant. Surprise surprise, it's mostly coming from China.

According to a newly published study, Eastern China is responsible for more than 60 percent of the recent rise in CFC-11 emissions. At the very least, this study could help Chinese authorities pinpoint the sources of this chemical and stop it in its tracks.

Under the Montreal Protocol, which came into effect in 1989, countries across the world agreed to ban ozone-depleting chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons. These were previously used in a variety of industrial processes at the time. Under the pact, we were on track to completely heal the ozone hole by the mid 2060s.

CFC-11 in particular is used in refrigeration, as well as to produce foams, and its emissions have been in decline for decades thanks to the phase out. However, CFC emission reductions began slowing in 2012, meaning there was a rogue source of the chemicals.

"The study last year used data from a remote, clean environment in Hawaii," Matt Rigby, the new study's lead author told Earther. "That allows you to work out the global changes in emissions." Rigby and his team members had a hunch that China might be the source of the banned chemicals, but they couldn't figure that out based on the old data.

Instead, they turned to other air monitoring stations in Japan and Korea. These showed that CFC-11 emissions went from an average of 6.4 gigagrams per year between 2008-12 to 13.4 gigagrams a year between 2014-2017. Additional weather modelling data also led them to the source of the emissions, namely northeast China

"The new analysis narrows the options on sources and locations, providing stronger evidence that the emissions are from new production (not stores of the chemicals marked for destruction) and from Eastern China, and this should put more pressure on China to investigate and curtail any rogue production," Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, told Earther.

Right now, those emissions from China alone aren't as damaging as the worldwide emissions predating the Montreal Protocol. However, if they continue at their current rate, they're still capable of setting back the healing of the ozone layer by years, or even a decade.

Additionally, CFC-11 is also a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, capable of warming the atmosphere about 5,000 times more than CO2. So whatever China does about this, they need to do it fast.