Ozone Layer Preservation Day Marked

THE importation of electrical equipment with components that contain ozone-depleting substances will be banned from January 1, 2010, the Deputy Director of the National Ozone Unit of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Emmanuel Osae Quansah, has stated.
He said the measure formed part of the government’s effort at combating the depletion of the ozone layer and the effects of climate change, since most of those ozone-depleting substances contributed to global warming.
Mr Quansah, who was speaking at this year’s United Nations International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, organised by the Free World Foundation (FWF) in Accra last Tuesday, further noted that the measure was also to help phase out ozone depleting substances like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) common in products such as refrigerators to hydrocarbon substances which were safer.
To ensure that, he said the EPA had signed a contract with 53 workshops in the country to convert CFC-based domestic refrigeration systems to hydrocarbon systems, adding that almost up to 1,150 refrigeration units had been converted so far since training began two weeks ago.
As an incentive, he stated that every unit converted by the workshops attracted an extra $7 for work done because that helped the country a great deal in reducing its dependency on CFCs.
According to him, the country reported to the Multilateral Fund Secretariat in Canada and the United Nations Environmental Programme, Ozone Section, in Nairobi, Kenya, on its annual consumption of ozone-depleting substances to avoid sanctions or punitive measures under the Montreal Protocol on substances that depleted the ozone layer.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, in an address given on his behalf by the Assistant Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Dr Stephen Duah Yentumi, said safeguarding the planet had often been seen as a luxury and a burden on economic recovery and development.
He said in phasing out CFCs and HCFCs, the Montreal Protocol had provided two benefits at once and expressed the hope that governments would look critically at those results and feel empowered to act across a wide range of environmental challenges, and not only in prosperous times.
The UN Secretary-General urged governments to fully explore the natural synergies that could occur among various multilateral environmental agreements to create tomorrow's "green economy" today.
He said the goal of world leaders and governments, when they gathered for the crucial meeting on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, next year, must be a decisive new agreement that set the world on track to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
Mr Ban said such agreements would not only represent progress on one of the greatest challenges in the history of mankind but was also likely to help tackle urban air pollution, deforestation, the loss of biodiversity and other dangers after decades of chemical attack.
The Executive Director of the FWF, Mr Rashid Anyetei Odoi, said his organisation believed that the harmful effects of the ozone layer depletion on humans were too devastating to be ignored and, therefore, expressed his appreciation to the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme for collaborating with it to create the platform for discussions on how best to preserve the ozone layer.