Interviewer
Prime Minister, this Conference has certainly drawn attention to the urgency of protecting the ozone layer but it has not produced consensus about how to limit the use of CFCs. Has the Conference achieved all that it hoped it would?
Prime Minister
Yes, very much so. Indeed I think it has surpassed all expectations. As you know, only thirty-three people had signed the requisite agreement before they came. Now another twenty have signed and fourteen more indicate their intention to do so, including China. That is very good.
A Conference in fact cannot do the chemical research. It cannot do the engineering research, it cannot in fact fashion the products. We know that the big chemical companies are doing that research. Some of them found intermediate products which are very much more beneficial already and they are going ahead fast. [end p1]
So that gives us really very great hope that the objective we have of eliminating the, the objectives this country has, of eliminating these dangerous chemicals by the end of the decade will be met.
Interviewer
But there is a principle that the polluter pays and chlorofluorocarbons have been produced by Western countries. Will Western countries pay to help developing countries find alternative technologies?
Prime Minister
I think Western countries will take two actions. First through the aid programmes. Now there is a big one through the World Bank. We have to look and see the great big projects which they initiate and finance are what we would call environment-friendly. In other words, they are not so interfering with some of the fundamental systems that they cause more harm and do not preserve the ozone layer.
So we will do that through the World Bank. We also belong to the European Community, we have a big aid programme through them. We will look at the environmental effects of that. [end p2]
We also have a big programme of bilateral aid and we also have something called aid and trade help which in fact is something which, when we are setting up factories in other countries, when we get orders, we give a certain amount of aid there.
Interviewer
Will this be new money, specifically to help developing countries switch to new technologies?
Prime Minister
On the CFCs, I do not think that a great deal of extra money will be required. After all, the CFCs themselves are not exactly cheap and most of them are made in this country and the substitutes I do not think will be very much more expensive.
I think some of the problems will come with the greenhouse effect, which is a different problem. But there what we have to see is that the means of fixing the carbon dioxide, which is mainly through forests or the food chain in the sea, are kept up as much as we can so they counteract the consequent effect of burning so much fossil fuel. [end p3]
Interviewer
Sticking to CFCs for the time being, we have in the West industrialised through one set of technologies. We now seem to be saying to the Third World: “You have got to find a different, more expensive, set of technologies”. And to put it bluntly, the people of Peking want to keep their food fresh just as much as the people of Pekham, how do we help them do that?
Prime Minister
With respect, I do not think you listened very closely to some of the things that were said. It is usually the big Western chemical companies that are doing the fundamental research. Yes, CFCs have enabled people to have refrigeration and air-conditioning, yes that has been and remains very beneficial because how else would you keep food in some of the very difficult circumstances that you have to? So they have done a good job.
But now we know that those very chemicals are causing harm. But do not forget that in a refrigerator those CFCs are in a closed system and it is only when you change, and that might in fact be broken down without recovering those chemicals, that the problem arises.
So it is in fact the Western countries that are doing the research and we are saying, as I indicated and Dr Tolba indicated in his speech: “Look, the newly developing countries, you need not go through that period we have been through, you can learn from our mistakes and we are doing the research”. [end p4]
And of course you know the usual thing is when you have done the research you can licence it for other countries to use for development. So I think the way you put it was not quite accurate.
Interviewer
You suggested that there might be an element of compulsion to require the refrigerator industry in Britain to move away from CFCs. What exactly do you have in mind?
Prime Minister
Well first, when you know that the various chemicals and the technology is there, then in fact over a period you can say that by the end of a certain year, it will be prohibited to use particular chemicals for that particular purpose. But you have got to make certain that both the chemicals and the requisite technology are there first. It is coming along very well.
Now you might find with, not the CFCs but the halons for example, some of the things that the bromide halons, which are very valuable in fire-fighting, much more effective than anything else, that you might for a very serious fire still have to use that, but the important thing is that then for practising and also for the less serious fires you do not. So you limit the use to where it is absolutely necessary for other reasons to use them. [end p5]
Interviewer
So you would be prepared to use the law to restrict the use of CFCs?
Prime Minister
Eventually yes, but we have to be certain that the means are available to do so.
Interviewer
And to ban exports of CFCs as well?
Prime Minister
Oh yes indeed.
Interviewer
You intend to do that?
Prime Minister
Yes, but I do not think you will find that it is very difficult. You seem to be assuming that you will not get the cooperation of industry. Believe you me, we will, and are, as well as the retailers. Industry thrives by pleasing the customer. Public opinion is very powerful. Public opinion is asking about this and demanding it. [end p6]
What we are saying is that we shall eventually, we believe, when all the technology is there, perhaps have to take steps to ban the use of certain chemicals for certain things.
Interviewer
When would you expect a ban on exports to come into effect? Are we talking about five or six years, ten years?
Prime Minister
We expect the technology will be there within a certain length of time, as I duly said in our press conference this morning. Asking questions does not solve scientific problems. It is easier to ask questions and write a leader than it is to do the work at a scientific bench and do the engineering technology.
So to some extent we have to rely on them. But they are getting on, we believe, well already.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, you are a qualified chemist. In fact you worked for several years as a research chemist so you are uniquely placed among world leaders to appreciate the gravity of the threat to the global ecology. The question then arises, why did we not hold this Conference perhaps two years ago when the first evidence of the extent of the threat to the ozone layer was coming to prominence? [end p7]
Prime Minister
I think over the last two years we have learnt more and more about it. It was only in 1985 that the British Antarctic Survey discovered the ozone hole over the Antarctica and in fact, as you know, it has got worse since then and a good deal more research has been done and also it is possible that there may be a similar depletion of the ozone layer, if not a gap, over the North Pole.
So I think we really have realised over the last two to three years the enormity of what is happening. We had the Montreal Protocol which took place a few months ago. We are having revisionary conferences and we really are now trying to get both the research and the action.
Already you will find, if you go into supermarkets, that you get your aerosols that are ozone-friendly, so it has not been that nothing has been done, quite a lot has been done.
Interviewer
If I may ask one final question. This Conference has highlighted the need to protect the ozone layer but there are many other environmental hazards to the planet: the greenhouse effect, acid rain, destruction of the rainforests, the handling of nuclear and toxic wastes. Is there a danger that after this Conference people may become complacent? They will say: “Well we have saved the ozone layer, we need not worry about the environment any more”. [end p8]
Prime Minister
No danger at all. Believe you me, people are passionately interested in the environment in which they live. They are interested really I would say at three levels. First, in getting rid of the litter and graffiti which disfigure the streets and people could do that if they stopped throwing things down and if they threw them down, to pick them up; the second level is at the level of the rivers and of the seas and the level at which we can cure the pollution which is occuring there and for that again you need a lot of chemical research, you cannot stop industrial processing, cannot stop industrial development. What we have to be certain is we process those chemicals and turn them into something harmless which can then go into the rivers and ultimately into the seas. So that goes on and we already have regional conferences about that.
And then there is the third level, the level we have been on this morning, which really is the atmosphere around our planet - the ozone layer and the layer of gases which leads to the greenhouse effect. That is something which affects every single country and it is no good just some saying they will take action and others forgetting about it. Because actually it will affect the kind of life we are able to have on this earth in the future.
Now that is what this Conference has been about - the big global, living systems, of which human beings are very much a part. [end p9]
Interviewer
And we have taken a step in the right direction?
Prime Minister
Quite a big step and I think everyone is not only very satisfied with it but they have enjoyed it enormously and feel that they are doing the right thing.