Interviewer
What has the Conference achieved?
Prime Minister
A very much greater awareness on the part of people as a whole of the urgency of taking action to save the ozone layer and secondly, action by countries themselves which have decided to sign the protocol, which means they are committed to reducing the offensive chemicals and thirdly, I think we know a good deal more about some of the possible solutions because industry has been here and shown us precisely what research they are doing and I think given us greater hope that we can tackle this problem in the next decade, although we shall have to live with the damage we have done for very much longer than that. [end p1]
Interviewer
What may puzzle a lot of people is who to believe. For instance, the Soviet Union is not yet convinced that there is a Manmade problem. The Prince CharlesPrince of Wales believes that it is Armageddon now. What is the truth? What is your assessment of the scale of the problem?
Prime Minister
There is a Man-made problem. We have done a lot of research and I think that is really beyond doubt. It comes from, really, very advanced chemicals which were a great advance in the 1930s. They were a great advance because they enabled us to have aerosols, they enabled refrigeration to take place very much more easily and also, ironically enough, they were very safe chemicals for people to use in factories, so safe that they were hailed as a great solution; so safe that they endure until they get right up into the upper atmosphere; then they decompose and then they start in fact to attack the ozone layer. So the safety which was an asset here is in fact one of the problems which enables them to survive and do damage up there.
Now we know all this. We know, because it was a British team that discovered the damage. There is now actually a big gap in the ozone layer over Antarctica, so I do not think that is in doubt. I think what was very clear from this particular film, [end p2] because you know often it is easier to see things in a film than to describe them in words. It is not just one or two molecules getting up there and staying—they react, then they form a chain reaction, it goes round and round and depletes the ozone layer and that is why it is very urgent, because of the damage we have done, and I would be very surprised if Russia's scientists disagreed with our analysis.
Interviewer
Who is going to take the lead now in solving the problem? Is it the scientists who are going to make the running or set the pace or is it the willingness of industry to do what is expected of them?
Prime Minister
I think it is three things:
I think it is the scientists, in particular the industrial scientists, of the big companies that are finding substitutes for these offensive chemicals. They are going quite hard and they have already got some interim substitutes which are very much less damaging than the original ones were and others are in prospect. When they have done the work in the laboratory they have got to translate that into production, so you have got the scientists in industry. [end p3]
Secondly, countries are all aware of it very much and we are gathering together to say: “Look! We must deal with this, we believe, in the next ten years, those of us who can do so and we must lead world opinion so that others are much more aware!”
And thirdly, public opinion is very powerful. If you shop in supermarkets, you know you will deliberately go for aerosols, for example, that are ozone-friendly.
Interviewer
And yet there is no compulsion on the manufacturer to say whether they contain harmful ozone … .
Prime Minister
If they have not got “ozone-friendly” on them, I would ask.
Interviewer
… like the United States has to compel identification in these things in everyday … .
Prime Minister
First, I think that actually will take quite a time.
Secondly, it is very very easy to ask; and
Thirdly, you will find that people who are using ozone-friendly are advertising it. [end p4]
Also—I do not know whether you looked in the papers this morning—some people who sell refrigeration, who sell fridges, are saying: “Look! We will take your old one and in fact we will take out the harmful chemicals which are trapped in it so they do not get into the Earth's atmosphere!” The public are very very much aware.
We cannot go to compulsion until we are certain that the chemicals are fully available and then, if they are still being made, we shall have to consider it, but you know, they are not easy to make and I think we shall find that industry phases them out because it will know that they deeply offend the customer and also because people who work in industry do not want to do damage to the ozone layer any more than the rest of us do.
Interviewer
Is that borne out by history? The Industrial Revolution wrought enormous damage to our environment.
Prime Minister
Yes, but where should we have been without starting on an Industrial Revolution? Yes, we had to start somewhere, but are you suggesting we could still live the life in villages and have the standard of living we have? [end p5]
Yes, you did start an Industrial Revolution. It was Disraeli who went among those terrible cities, saw the damage to the air, saw the damage to drainage, saw the need to have good drainage. In fact came back and did a Public Health Act in his Administration and what did his opponents accuse him of? Having a policy of sewage! He saw it, he did it.
It was a government which I supported in the 1950s that introduced the Clean Air Act.
We have done many many other things, but we did not know when we embarked on those things the consequences that there would be. As we have in fact found those consequences, so we have taken action to deal with them. Salmon are back in the Thames, in the Tyne, the Tees, in the Humber. The Mersey Basin? We are in fact having a £4 billion programme to clean up that whole basin, so we are doing these things, of course we are, and people are interested in doing them and we are spending over £1 billion a year on improving the quality of water, improving the quality of rivers.
Interviewer
But then, what is your general reaction to the criticism of the Prince of Wales last night that governments should be doing more, it is not enough to rely on the voluntary approach? [end p6]
Prime Minister
We are doing more. The Prince CharlesPrince of Wales went on to say that we need to take compulsory powers as appropriate. He did not say we need to take them straight away. He is far too wise and far too knowledgeable in the scientific ways to say that. “As appropriate” and that is very much what I have said to you—as appropriate.
Interviewer
He did mention that 65 percent of micro-electronics firms—according to a survey—have no intention of phasing out CFCs.
Prime Minister
But if they cannot get them, they will have no alternative and they are not made by very many people and the people who make them are looking for substitutes, and I think again, part of the task of this Conference was to make people aware of the dangers and there must be many many people who still do not know the damage being done.
First, we have to get the message across: “Look! They are harmful!.
Secondly, that you do not have to use them—there will be substitutes coming along; and
Thirdly, please use those substitutes and make an effort, because if not, it will be damaging the life support systems of our Earth. [end p7]
Interviewer
When the new products are available, will you make it illegal to manufacture or export the old ones?
Prime Minister
If we are not getting the full cooperation, then we shall have to take legislative powers, but I indicated it is not that number of people who make these particular chemicals. Those who do already have a massive research programme. There are quite a lot already in circulation. For example, they are in the closed system, which enables your refrigerator—whether it is at home or a commercial one—to work, and more and more we are finding that people who sell new refrigerators will take back the old ones and take out those harmful chemicals and either use them for any reprocessing that they might need in a closed system or alternatively, process them until they are harmless and can be disposed of.
Interviewer
Are you certain, because of your intense personal interest in this, that the Government as a whole has got its act together?
For instance, you were urging people to put off the purchase of a new refrigerator for another year. Mr. Ridley, a few hours later, was saying that he saw little prospect of new models being on sale for some years. [end p8]
Prime Minister
I was going down the industrial exhibits, I was asking. I came to a stall which in fact said—and I think it was probably one of the commercial stalls—that they have certain things in now and I was asking them if it is advisable.
Frankly, it depends not upon what I say in any way, it depends upon whether the chemicals are available. Some will be available in 1990 and others in 1991 and it is different for commercial fridges from what it is with domestic fridges, so it is a question of whether they are available.
But first, if I needed a new fridge immediately because my present one had broken down, of course you would buy a new one because you need to to refrigerate your food, but the answer to the question which I asked is it is not possible to do that because they are not all available and obviously people need refrigeration.
But as we went round, the important thing was shown—if everyone had come round with me—that those chemicals are in a closed system, so while they are there they are not doing any harm, but they are in fact refrigerating your food. It is when you sell that refrigerator or dispose of that because it does not work or because you want a more modern one that you must take care to see that those chemicals are carefully taken out and put in the hands of someone who knows how to deal with them, and there is an advertisement in our newspapers this morning on the part of someone who sells refrigerators to say: “Look! Let us have your old one and we will carefully take those damaging chemicals out so they do not get into the atmosphere!” [end p9]
So had people seen the whole thing through, they would not have got into that muddle.
Interviewer
Some people have discerned—or feel they have discerned—differences between you and your Nicholas RidleySecretary of State for the Environment.
Prime Minister
Nonsense! Nonsense!
Interviewer
Let me just ask you this. Here is a man, Nicholas Ridley, who throughout his political life has stood for less government. At this junction, on this issue, surely you need a man whose instincts are to get things done and that may mean more government?
Prime Minister
First, the role of Government is to run things soundly, the financial, the defence, the police etc., run things soundly and to create a framework of law within which industry can operate. That means creating standards, creating safety provisions, stopping harmful things. That is the very kind of intervention which is right at the heart of this Government's policy. It is then at the [end p10] heart of this Government's policy that politicians do not know how to run industry or how to do the research, so having created the framework within which industry can operate, we stand back, monitor it and let industry get on with it. It is that that has produced this enormous burst of enterprise and prosperity which is enabling us to spend more on the environment.
Secondly, Nick Ridley has done more as Secretary of State for the Environment than almost any of his predecessors. The volume of work he has done is terrific. He has done more to improve the quality of water. He himself is, in fact, a most sensitive person. He knows all about architecture. He is the grandson of Lutyens. He himself is a considerable artist. And he himself is a civil engineer. He has that rare combination of being both in the artistic world and in the scientific world and let me say he is one of the best managers for managing a Department I have ever come across. I am a great Nick Ridley fan. He has been absolutely terrific.
Now you will put that out, will you? You are not going to cut that out? You have done immense harm by suggesting that we are not together. We are. [end p11]
Interviewer
I reported other people's suggestions.
Prime Minister
They are wrong!
Interviewer
A very brief, final question. If you are in power for the next five years, you will preside perhaps over the most crucial period in the future, in the whole time our planet has existed, because in that period it may be decided how long it will go on existing. Does that prospect overawe you? Do you think world leadership is up to that?
Prime Minister
Yes, I do.
I think I have never known a subject taken up so quickly and that means that the urgency has communicated itself to most governments.
I think that the developing world need not make our mistakes and after all, wise people do not repeat the mistakes of the past, they learn from them, and that, I think, is what this Conference has helped to do.
When I agreed to make a speech to the Royal Society, I really got out all the scientific papers and for the first time went through it all myself and was really rather horrified at the urgency [end p12] of the thing, which I had not fully appreciated before, and we are learning the whole time. That is why I made that speech saying that whatever has to be done must be done because we must hand on this planet to our children as good as we found it and preferably better. Incidentally, although I put the press release out, there was no television there; wasn't it interesting? But they, once I had made it, realised the importance of it.
But already other people, too, are on to it, but the whole effort has accelerated and we have public opinion with us. They are wanting, knowing the problems, and as prosperity goes forward we have more money to deal with these problems and they are wanting and rightly, a higher quality of life. This is vital.
Other environmental things are a fact of higher quality of life and we must do our level best to respond to their needs and industry will respond to their needs, because industry succeeds as it pleases the customer and the consumer.