“India Could Pave the Way for Sustainable Air Conditioning Systems”

Mr Atul Bagai is Head of Country Office (India), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Here, he is in an exclusive conversation with Abhas Mukherjee for TerraGreen magazine.

- Abhas Mukherjee

Ozone depletion is gradual thinning of Earth’s ozone layer in the upper atmosphere caused by the release of chemical compounds from industry and other human activities. Could you elaborate on how dangerous this phenomenon is, keeping in mind our future on planet Earth?

This question was a key concern for the whole world and its political hierarchy in the early 1980s. That was a time when science had informed the world that ozone depletion can lead to drastic health effects—not only for humans, but also for other terrestrial and ocean life. Two of the great health impacts which were found to be increasing as a result of ozone depletion were skin cancer and eye cataracts. That sent an alarm notice, especially in the developed world, as its impact was primarily in the colder climates, and led to the signing of the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol. The projected impacts were huge, but fortunately timely action in the 1980s led to addressing of these issues through the successful Montreal Protocol. In fact, there were studies done which showed that skin cancer and cataract cases have drastically come down in the countries which were supposed to have been impacted, and the hospital costs saved run into hundreds of millions of dollars. So both from the impact perspective and the mitigation perspective, the Montreal Protocol has been a very successful environmental agreement.

Talking about building the capacity of subregional networks in Asia and enabling them to meet the compliance targets under the Montreal Protocol. How was your experience regarding this in your capacity at UNEP?