National Cabinet meeting. (Photo/Courtesy).

The Council of Ministers approved a bill on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer – an international agreement to protect the earth’s ozone layer by phasing out the production and consumption of substances consuming it.

First adopted in 1987, the multilateral agreement has been a landmark in global environmental protection, with countries committing to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of ozone-depleting chemicals.

The ozone layer is the earth’s atmospheric shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

The protocol was approved after the Minister of Justice Ruben Madol presented a memo to the cabinet meeting chaired by President Kiir on Friday, paving the way for its domestication.

Information Minister Michael Makuei said the draft law passed through the Governance Cluster before its tabling at the cabinet, where it was approved and referred to the national parliament for further deliberation and adoption.

“This protocol was passed by the U.N. and is supposed to be adopted by every country. Today the Ministry of Justice prepared it and tabled it before the Council of Ministers then today it is presented to the Council of Ministers,” he said.

“The Council of Ministers passed it with the directives to the minister to table it before the National Legislative Assembly for deliberation and adoption.”

The Montreal Protocol was designed to stop the production and import of ozone depleting substances and reduce their concentration in the atmosphere to help protect the earth’s ozone layer.

It sits under the Vienna Convention, adopted in 1985 following international discussion of scientific discoveries in the 1970s and 1980s highlighting the adverse effect of human activity on ozone levels in the stratosphere and the discovery of the ‘ozone hole’.

The Montreal Protocol has been further strengthened through six Amendments, which have brought forward phase out schedules and added new substances to the list of substances controlled under the Montreal Protocol.

The amendments are London 1990, Copenhagen 1992, Vienna 1995, Montreal 1997, Beijing 1999 and Kigali 2016.

In January 2012, South Sudan ratified the Montreal Protocol, making it the first international environmental treaty to achieve complete ratification and reflecting its universal acceptance and success.

197 countries have ratified the Montreal Protocol, including all United Nations members, as well as the Cook Islands, Niue, the Holy See, Palestine, and the European Union.