why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

is it too politicized, are the required changes too damaging to the economy to start agressively implementing them?

> why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

Because it also happened to be profitable for a large company (DuPont), which was also the company largely responsible for the whole ozone layer thing. They lobbied against ozone layer protections while they had a patent on Freon, but as soon as it expired, they came up with a new more expensive alternative and started supporting environmental regulations forcing people to switch to the new one.

Saving the ozone layer required changing practices in a relatively small part of the economy (refrigeration, mostly). In 1994, the total cost of the transition in the US was estimated to less than $100 billion [1], about 1.3% of GDP ($7.3 trillion [2]).

Reducing global carbon emissions to reach net zero by 2050 has been estimated to cost $9.2 trillion per year [3]. World GDP is currently $126 trillion [4]. That means 7.3% of current world GDP per year, or 1.8x of it over a quarter century.

[1] https://cei.org/studies/the-high-cost-of-cool-the-economic-i...

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...

[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-ins...

[4] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...

This worked so well because we had suitable replacement gases and the industry had little financial incentives to push against it.

It's a very different situation with fossil fuels.

> why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

For the ozone layer, it was deemed possible to eliminate (or significantly reduce) certain chemical emissions.

For generalised climate change, the common enemy of all people is the transnational petroleum industry. This corporate alliance will topple democracies rather than reduce its profits and influence.

Industry groups saw the ozone scenario unfold and said "never again".

Same thing happened after Nixon - it led directly to the founding of Fox News (https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2011/memo-from-197...).

> why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

If you want the honest, brutal take it is because I remember, at least in my country, that for the ozone stuff there was a lot of scientific people taking lead roles in educating the masses. Especially those with credibility who were otherwise not media savvy.

Climate change on the other hand, whenever I think about the words, I can only get Greta Thunberg and her antics in my mind. Even for someone who believes in climate change I can't help but feel these crazed lunatics have only caused massive damage to what should have otherwise been a wake up call. It is like how COVID got associated with Fauci and Gain-of-function.

> is it too politicized, are the required changes too damaging to the economy to start agressively implementing them?

Ofcourse it was politicized. It became a party vs party, an ideology vs ideology thing. Science took a backseat.

Reducing CFCs, while difficult and requiring global cooperation, was far more simplistic and targeted than decreasing co2 emissions

This has actually been studied. The question even has it's own wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion_and_climate_ch...

Because with the ozone layer, the causes of the problem were much more narrow, the solutions were orders of magnitude cheaper, and they affected a much smaller industry, much less dramatically.

It’s not that the changes are “too damaging to the economy,” it’s that they’d need to be much more widespread. For example, everyone should have stopped driving gasoline engine cars at least by 2010, when the scientific evidence had already been undeniable for years, for anyone studying the matter in good faith. No such action was needed to deal with the ozone layer.

Compounding the problem for climate change mitigation is that it threatens the wealth of people in the oil, gas, and related industries. Changing refrigerant type for ozone hole mitigation was not an existential threat to any industry. The fossil fuel industry has plowed billions of dollars into propaganda and political influence to prevent or slow down changes.

Was an industry really hurt by the actions needed to rebuild the ozone layer? I don’t think so, at least not as far as I can remember. On the other hand the fossil fuel industry has an insane amount of control over politics since a century or so?

Ozone layer "fix" was invisible to the public.

Global warming fix requires basically banning most of airline travel, phasing out the meat industry, and other massive life changes. And people would rather enjoy the lives themselves instead of giving a fuck about the planet they leave for future generations.