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The four earlier assessments on Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion, between 1989 and 1998, dealt almost exclusively with increasing ultraviolet radiation and its impacts. The present assessment gives an update on these same problems, but with a special emphasis on the interactions with climate change, at the request of the 11th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and climate change are
dealt with in separate international conventions. Although both processes are aspects of global atmospheric change, the measures needed for phasing out ozone depleting chemicals and for limiting the increasing greenhouse effect are distinctly different. Even if separated in this fashion, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two processes have many interactions. For the time period that these two threats co-exist, there is a strong likelihood that their interactions will have consequences for the environment.