Susan Solomon explaining why the United States held disproportionate leverage in negotiating the global CFC ban: consumer boycotts had already killed the domestic market for the chemicals, so exporters couldn't rely on selling into it regardless of what the treaty said.
Just another way for the rich countries to impose costs on them.
Susan, watching the proceedings, saw the chance for agreement jeopardized. It wasn't until the final days of the conference that negotiators reached common ground. Developing countries would get more time before a cap went to effect. Producer nations would subsidize if there was higher cost. Europe came on board. And ultimately, Susan says the deciding factor there was the market power of the U.S.
The American people made chlorofluorocarbons uneconomic for our industry because we gave up those spray cans.
You couldn't sell here anyway. Then, over in the White House, whether to agree to the treaty also quietly hung on a knife's edge. President Reagan had campaigned precisely against more regulation. His first head of the EPA had dismissed ozone depletion as a threat. His Secretary of the Interior said people should just wear more sunscreen. His cabinet was split as to what he should do. It's not clear what ultimately tilted Reagan to support the treaty, although he loved riding horses on his ranch outdoors in the sunlight, and he just had his own bout with skin cancer right before the papers crossed his desk. The pessimist's version is: even with the science, even with public pressure, even with a visible hole in the sky, this almost failed. The pessimist's version is this was a training ground for later movements denying environmental threats. You could argue the loss on ozone galvanized later wins. In the years after the treaty, the House of Representatives held hearings about, quote, ozone myths. Influential voices grew louder mocking the science, such as radio commentator Rush Limbaugh.
The ozone hole. Oh no, we're destroying the ozone with cans of hairspray. There is no ozone hole now.
And disbelief has survived all the way to the highest levels of government today.
