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[Michaelangelica]

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/425824/820200

The earth's ozone layer is finally on the mend after decades of damage, two UN agencies report.

However, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) said the protective layer, which filters dangerous solar radiation, was recovering more slowly than experts had originally hoped.

Over huge areas of Europe, North America and Asia in the northern hemisphere and over southern Australasia, Latin America and Africa, the layer would be back to pre-1980 levels by 2049, the agencies said.

This was five years later than forecast in the last major scientific report in 2002.

The agencies' message came in an official summary of a report by 250 scientists to be issued next year on the effects of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which committed signatory nations progressively to ban the use of ozone-harmful products.

"The early signs that the atmosphere is healing demonstrate that the Montreal Protocol is working," said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP.

"But the delayed recovery is a warning that we cannot take the ozone layer for granted and must maintain and accelerate our efforts to phase out harmful chemicals," he said in a statement issued in Geneva and Nairobi.