Question: When is the World Ozone Day celebrated every year?
(a) 14 September
(b) 16 September
(c) 20 September
(d) 18 September
Answer: (b)
Related facts:
- World Ozone Day is celebrated every year on 16 September.
- The theme of this year was ‘32 years and healing’.
- The theme for this year celebrates over three decades of remarkable international cooperation to protect the ozone layer and the climate under the Montreal Protocol.
- The Montreal Protocol has led to the phase-out of 99 per cent of ozone-depleting chemicals in refrigerators, air-conditioners and many other products.
Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion :
- The latest Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion completed in 2018, shows that, as a result, parts of the ozone layer have recovered at a rate of 1-3% per decade since 2000.
- At projected rates, Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone will heal completely by the 2030s. The Southern Hemisphere will follow in the 2050s and Polar Regions by 2060.
- Ozone layer protection efforts have also contributed to the fight against climate change by averting an estimated 135 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, from 1990 to 2010.
- There is a need to support the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which entered into force on 1 January 2019. By phasing down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are potent climate-warming gases, this amendment can avoid up to 0.4°C of global temperature rise by the end of the century, while continuing to protect the ozone layer.
Case of India:
- Recent findings of a study mentions that unclean air from the Indo-Gangetic plain and central India is messing with ozone levels in the Indian subcontinent.
- There is a need for pan-India co-ordination to control the lung-damaging greenhouse gas, the chief ingredient of smog. There is an emergence of central India as a significant source of dirty air.
- Breathing air thick with ozone can have adverse impacts on human health, animals and vegetation. It also mentions that “more than a million Indians will die prematurely” each year from long-term ozone exposure by 2050.
Links:
https://ozone.unep.org/ozone-day/32-years-and-healing
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/statement/secretary-generals-message-world-ozone-day-2019
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/ozone-preservation-day-dirty-air-from-gangetic-plains-central-india-messing-up-the-ozone-neighbourhood-7345271.html