Islamabad: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has urged the global communities that while focusing its energies on tackling climate change do not neglect the ozone layer and ramp up action to overcome the threat posed by the illegal use of ozone-depleting gases, according to a press statement issued here on Wednesday.
In his public message on the World Ozone Day being marked today across the world including Pakistan, he said that “another year of climate change-induced floods, hurricane, record heatwaves, super storms and climate disruptions signify that the world community has no choice but to act now and together before it is too late to completely restore ozone layer, which protects lives on the earth from ‘very adverse’ impacts of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight when coming down unfiltered through the cracked ozone layer.
Ozone layer depletion causes increased UV radiation levels at the Earth’s surface, which is damaging to human health. Negative effects include increase in certain types of skin cancers, eye cataracts and immune deficiency disorders. UV radiation also affects terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, altering growth, food chains and biochemical cycles. Aquatic life just below the water’s surface, the basis of the food chain, is particularly adversely affected by high UV levels. UV rays also affect plant growth, reducing agricultural productivity.
Malik Amin Aslam stated, “Life on earth would not be possible without sunlight. But the energy emanating from the sun would be too much for life on the earth to thrive if it was not due to the presence of Ozone Layer.”
As it is known commonly that the stratospheric layer in the earth’s atmosphere shields the earth from most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. Sunlight makes life possible, but the ozone layer makes the life as possible, he added.
PM’s special assistant Malik Amin said that today on the World Ozone Day, which is the United Nation’s annual day and marked every year on September 16 to marks the anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone Layer. The world is celebrating 35 years of the successful implementation of the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer.
This year the Ozone Day is being celebrated across the world under the theme ‘Ozone for life: 35 years of ozone layer protection’. This convention and its Montreal Protocol united the world to cut out the gases creating a hole in the planet’s ozone layer, critical in shielding us against deadly UV radiation. This model of international cooperation has put the ozone layer on the road to recovery, protecting human and ecosystem health.