WINNER: 2019 Governor's Awards - Discovery of Emission Violations to Montreal Protocol

2019 Governor's Awards - Discovery of Emission Violations to Montreal Protocol: A data sleuthing effort that revealed outlaw emissions of CFC-11 - violations of Montreal Protocol emissions standards - resulting in China making a national-level plan to comply with the Protocol.

Principal Investigators:
Stephen A. Montzka, NOAA
Geoff S. Dutton, CIRES
Eric Ray, CIRES

The methodical detective work undertaken by these scientists allowed them to announce to the world that despite indications of success, the Montreal Protocol was in fact being breached in a substantial way by a country in eastern Asia. The United Nations Ozone Secretariat responded rapidly with a call to address the issue, specifically calling out this team’s research.

This discovery became an immediate topic of discussion at the United Nations and in other international and national agencies, and within the scientific community. A few months after those findings were made public, China made a commitment to the United Nations to immediately curtail the production of CFC-11 within their boundaries. Country-wide searches and crackdowns on CFC use in the country have been conducted. Furthermore, an international workshop (attended by Montzka) explored a range of actions China might take to address this issue, including the creation of a national atmospheric measurement network for the detection and quantification of CFC-11 emissions across China.

This outcome, which can be attributed directly to this team’s long-term and accurate measurements of CFC-11 in the atmosphere and their skill in communicating this critical information to a global audience, will benefit people worldwide for generations to come.