International Ozone Day:

Ozone Unit wins kudos for efficient work

Chamikara Weerasinghe

The National Ozone Unit of the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry has reached it 2009 national and international targets on removing ozone depleting CFC and other chemical substances earlier than the time set out for their fulfillment.

Environment and Natural Resources Minister Champika Ranawaka said, the National Ozone Unit (NOU) has been able to get international funds as a result of this upbeat attitude and efficiency .

The Minister was addressing a gathering of environmentalists, schoolchildren, educationists and journalists at function held at the Public Library Auditorium, Colombo, to mark the International Ozone Day on September 16.

The Unit has reached its national goals under the leadership of its Director Dr.W.L Sumathipala and his staff, he said.

The Environment Ministry’s Ozone Unit has become one of the few institutions in Sri Lanka to have successfully accomplished its goals set by the Government. The unit has successfully fulfilled its environmental responsibility for the past 15 years.

The minister said, just as the country’s Security Forces have fulfilled their target of eradicating terrorism on time, the National Ozone Unit too has fulfilled its task of removing ozone depleting chemical substances.

Minister Ranawaka said he is happy as the President of Bureau , Vienna Convention, that Sri Lanka’s National Ozone Unit has been acclaimed internationally for its work on removing CFC chemical substances to protect the ozone layer.

In 2008, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) gave away the Montreal Protocol Implementers’ Award to Sri Lanka in recognition of its effective implementation of the Montreal Protocol and the Global effort to protect the Ozone layer. ”Just as much we may share our military experience and expertise in the art of eradicating terrorism, we may also share our expertise and experience in eliminating CFC chemical substances,” he said.

“The greatest challenge we face today is climate change. Although there were many agreements between scientists about protecting the ozone layer in the 70s , there was no real consensus about it until the manifestation of the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol in the 80s,“ he said.

Of over 300 world environmental organizations, the National Ozone Unit of Sri Lanka was the only environmental organization to have fulfilled its undertaking of eliminating CFC chemicals, and it will be worthwhile that we share our success and part its knowledge to these environmental organisations.

”In 1992, 191 countries came to a consensus in Rio De Janeiro, where they entrusted some 39 developed countries to cut down the mammoth of fossil fuel, gas and petroleum they burn causing emission of CFC to the air.

In 1997 these developed countries said in Kyoto, they would voluntarily cut down burning of fuel up to 2007, and they said they would “definitely” cut down it from 2008 and 2010,” the Minister said and added that none of these promises have been kept by the developed countries.

The Minister said, if the countries were unable to reach an agreement to address this problem the planet will soon be in trouble and the countries will sink with its people.