Overview
- An international study published Thursday in Nature Communications reports that ongoing leaks from exempt industrial “feedstock” uses are likely to delay the ozone layer’s full recovery by about seven years.
- Global monitoring from the AGAGE network finds losses near 3–4% during production and processing, far above the 0.5% leakage rate the Montreal Protocol originally assumed.
- The analysis shifts the expected return to 1980 ozone levels to around 2073 under current practices, with an uncertainty range of six to eleven years.
- The authors project total emissions will flatten around 2045 and fall only about 50% by 2100 if feedstock use and controls do not change.
- Researchers urge Montreal Protocol parties to curb these emissions through substitution or tighter controls, noting cuts would also avoid roughly 300 million metric tons of CO2‑equivalent warming each year by mid‑century.