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Healing of ozone hole makes international headlines

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In the media
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Research by Dr Ryan Neely (National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Earth and Environment) and Dr Anja Schmidt (Earth and Environment) with Professor Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that found the first signs of healing in the ozone layer has created headlines around the world.

Both of the University of Leeds academics did an extensive series of interviews on 1 July, with television reports on BBC News, GMT (BBC World News), BBC Arabic TV, Al Jazeera, TNT World News and TV2 Danish.

Clips from Dr Schmidt’s interview with Today on BBC Radio 4 on Friday morning were broadcast across BBC radio throughout the day, including Radio 2, 5Live and local stations. The story was also reported on Talksport (and various UK commercial stations), Bloomberg Radio (and various US stations), News at One (RTE Radio 1) and Jules Bellerby (BBC Radio York).

In the print media and online, the research was reported by the FT (2 July) and in a comment piece (4 July). It was also covered by ABC news, Huffington Post , Coventry Telegraph, Yorkshire Evening Post and Evening Standard.

The good news story, which demonstrates the success of the Montreal Protocol – a global initiative to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), responsible for damaging the ozone layer – has prompted some papers to suggest that international action to tackle climate change can also succeed, with an upbeat headline in The Huffington Post, “Here’s proof we can solve global environmental problems if we try”.