Iran To Attend Network Meet of South Asia Ozone Officers In Sri Lanka

New Delhi, May 14, IRNA – Iran to participate in Meeting of the South Asia Network of Ozone Officers will be held from May 27 -30 at the Grand Oriental Hotel in Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka. Beside Iran, the Ozone Officers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, North Korea, South Korea, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and two developed countries: Japan and United States will also participate. The meeting is organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP) in collaboration with the National Ozone Unit. This Network Meeting is an annual event planned by the Ozone Secretariat of the Montreal Protocol. Sri Lanka acceded to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and ratified the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1989 and its subsequent amendments between 1990 and 1999. Sri Lanka continues to be an active country in the phasing out of ozone depleting substances and is well ahead of developing countries in fulfilling the Protocol requirements. The Ozone Officers Network for South Asia is managed by UNEP as part of its global networking under the Ozon Action Branch. The ozone layer refers to a region of Earthˈs stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sunˈs UV radiation. It contains high concentrations of ozone (O3) relative to other parts of the atmosphere, although it is still very small relative to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer absorbs 97–99 per cent of the Sun’s medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface. Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4 per cent per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earthˈs polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. In addition to these well-known stratospheric phenomena, there are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events. Since the ozone layer absorbs UVB ultraviolet light from the sun, ozone layer depletion is expected to increase surface UVB levels, which could lead to damage, including increase in skin cancer. This was the reason for the Montreal Protocol./end