Evss Ia Richie

ESS IA

International Baccalaureate

How much did the Montreal Protocol affect the change in the annual temperature of 5 MEDCs and 5 LEDCs in South-East Asia since 2000 – 2015?

Word Count: 2448

ESS IA Title Investigating the effect of Montreal Protocol on the annual temperature of South-East Asian countries.

Research Question How much did the Montreal Protocol affect the change in the annual temperature of 5 MEDCs and 5 LEDCs in South-East Asia since 2000 – 2015?

Introduction The increase of annual temperature in the world has been one of the largest issue happening globally. This increase in global temperature has affected many different areas of the world, causing warming to happen and loss of ice caps near the north and south poles of the Earth. The Earth’s global temperature is a vast measure in which it is affected by many factors such as thickness of ozone layer, carbon emissions, greenhouse effect, ocean current and the atmospheric circulation. The world is becoming warmer and warmer as time goes by. Whether the cause is natural variability or human intervention and interference, thermometer readings around the world have increased in a constant rate since the beginning of the Industrial revolution. One of the main factors that increases the global temperature is how much energy the Earth receives from the suns radiation and how much the Earth radiates back into space, if there is more energy received than reflected back to space, it will increase the global temperature, this is affected by the thickness of the ozone layer.

The global annual temperature has always been an issue as it has been increasing every year, causing global issues such as climate change. One of the main factors causing this increase in annual temperature is the increase in carbon emission. Carbon emissions, in the form of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and also chlorofluorocarbons (also known as CFC), creates holes in the stratosphere (second layer of the atmosphere) which allows more of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays to pass through and cause the Earth’s surface to heat up. This causes a rise in the global temperature as more carbon emitted will lead to more holes in the stratospheric ozone, hence more ultraviolet rays will pass through and reach the Earth’s surface.

ESS IA Although, some countries have taken measures in order to prevent those global issues from happening in a drastic rate. Countries such as Canada creates environmental policies in order to sustain and maintain a low rate of global temperature change. In 26 August 1987, Canada created an environmental treaty which was designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances such as CFC that are responsible for ozone depletion, called the Montreal Protocol. This ozone depletion also affected the annual temperature change all over the world. The Montreal Protocol induces a ban on the use of CFCs in household appliances such as air conditioners and refrigerators. Even though CFCs are very efficient in keeping things in a low temperature, CFCs are very good at trapping heat so it is one of the major contributors to global warming as a greenhouse gas. As CFCs trap heat near the troposphere, there will be less amount of heat that is reflected back up into the atmosphere, causing an increase in temperature of the air, hence global temperature will also increase.

I personally grew up as a child in a developing country, Indonesia, which used to be a LEDC in South-East Asia, but is now classified as a MEDC due to its rapid development both economically and its standard of living. South-East Asia contains of mostly LEDCs which used to use substances that contain CFCs in order to grow economically as CFCs contain efficient cooling substances that can improve the sales of cooling industries such as refrigerator and air conditioner companies. This lead to my curiosity in the impacts CFC has to the annual temperature as Indonesia lies right at the equator and it keeps becoming hotter as time goes by. However, after all the South-East Asian countries have joined the treaty, Montreal Protocol, the annual temperature, although it still increases, it increases at a slower rate. Therefore, I would like to find out the difference between the increasing rate of annual temperature before and after the Montreal Protocol was introduced to countries in South-East Asia.

Hypothesis The annual temperature of the 10 countries in southeast Asia will continue to increase, however at a slower rate, due to the introduction of Montreal Protocol to southeast Asia. This ban on the use of CFCs will reduce the rate of the increase in annual temperature of the countries or even decrease the annual temperature.

ESS IA Variables Independent Variables: Carbon Emission, Montreal Protocol Dependent Variables: Annual Temperature Change Controlled Variables: Controlled Variable

How to Control

Why should it be controlled?

Location of the countries

Researching data about the

The location of countries

(South-East Asia)

Human Development Index

should be controlled as it

MEDCs:

of only South-East Asian

will allow a more accurate

(Singapore, Malaysia,

countries in order to classify

result as the research will

Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand)

the countries into groups of

be kept at one location and

LEDCs:

LEDC and MEDC.

annual temperature of that

(Vietnam, Lao PDR, The

specific location will be

Philippines, Myanmar,

easily compared between

Cambodia)

years.

Year of data collected

Excerpt data only from

To find out the difference in

(2000, 2010, 2015)

years 2000, 2010, 2015,

annual temperature in the

from the secondary data

countries before the

collected.

Montreal Protocol was introduced to the SouthEast Asian countries, and after it was introduced.

Methodology 

Obtain data about the global issues happening in the world. (Global Carbon Emissions, Annual Global Temperature)

Data Collection for Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Myanmar. 

Collect data for annual global temperature from years 2000, 2010 and 2015.



Collect data for Human Development Index for the different countries from the 3 years.

ESS IA 

Classify the 5 highest HDI countries as MEDC and 5 lowest countries as LEDC.

Analysis on the Montreal Protocol 

Explain the idea behind the Montreal Protocol and the use of it, and how it affects the countries’ annual temperature.



Find the difference between annual temperature change, before and after the Montreal Protocol was introduced, to make a conclusion about the significance of the treaty.

Data Collection and Analysis Data on the Human Development Index of the 10 countries in South-East Asia is collected in order to categorize the countries into MEDC and LEDC. This shows the data of South-East Asian countries in decreasing order of Human Development Index in the year 2015. Human Development Index Country

2000

2010

2015

Singapore

0.819

0.909

0.929

Brunei

0.819

0.842

0.852

Malaysia

0.725

0.772

0.795

Thailand

0.649

0.724

0.741

The Philippines

0.624

0.665

0.693

Indonesia

0.606

0.661

0.686

Vietnam

0.579

0.654

0.684

Lao PDR

0.466

0.546

0.593

Cambodia

0.420

0.537

0.571

Myanmar

0.431

0.530

0.569

ESS IA

Human Development Index (2000-2015) 1 0.9 0.8 0.7

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Singapore

Brunei

Malaysia

Thailand

2000

The Indonesia Vietnam Philippines 2010

Lao PDR Cambodia Myanmar

2015

From the data in the table above, the 5 countries that belong in the MEDC group or the LEDC group can be classified through the Human Development Index as a measure of how developed a country is. The 5 MEDCs will be the top 5 countries of this list while the 5 LEDCs will be the bottom 5 countries of this list. The 5 MEDCs being Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, and The Philippines. The 5 LEDCs being Indonesia, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

In this table a trend can be seen, that shows an increase in Human Development Index of the different countries over the 15 years of time. However, the increase is mostly in different rates as some countries might have developed more than the other in the past 15 years. This could be caused by the different economical standards of every country which is also affected by the influence of exports and imports, which eventually increases the standard of living in the country itself. Singapore has the highest standard of living as can be seen in the table with the latest HDI of 0.929, which is considered to be a really high amount of HDI. While Myanmar being the lowest in terms of HDI and standard of living in southeast Asia with only 0.569 HDI. Through this data we can now see the different effects of the introduction of Montreal Protocol to MEDCs and LEDCs.

The climate of Southeast Asia is mainly tropical and this tends to mean the weather is hot and humid most of the year. There is a lot of rainfall during the wet, monsoon

ESS IA season, due to seasonal shift in winds and the effect of the tropical rain belt. In mountainous areas of the northern region, where higher altitudes lead to milder day temperatures, colder nights and drier landscape, generally warm or hot days are followed by some overnight cooling. Several factors affect temperature and prevailing weather conditions in particular places including wind speed, carbon emissions from industries, ocean currents.

This is the data for the annual temperature of the countries from years: 2000. 2010 and 2015. The data collected is from these specific years as at the year 2000, southeast Asian countries have not signed the treaty with Montreal Protocol and that annual temperature data will be compared to the 2010 and 2015 years to see the distinction in different temperature changes across the countries.

Annual Temperature/ ºC + 0.1ºC Country

2000

2010

2015

Singapore

27.1ºC

27.6ºC

28.1ºC

Brunei

26.6ºC

27.4ºC

27.8ºC

Malaysia

26.4ºC

26.8ºC

26.1ºC

Thailand

26.3ºC

27.4ºC

27.9ºC

The Philippines

27.0ºC

27.4ºC

23.9ºC

Indonesia

26.2ºC

26.5ºC

26.3ºC

Vietnam

24.0ºC

24.8ºC

25.2ºC

Lao PDR

23.9ºC

24.9ºC

24.6ºC

Cambodia

27.1ºC

27.9ºC

26.4ºC

Myanmar

22.9ºC

23.9ºC

23.4ºC

ESS IA

Annual Temperature (2000-2015) ANNUAL TEMPERATURE/ ºC

30 25

20 15 10 5 0

2000

2010

2015

It can be seen from this table that the annual temperature of the 10 countries in SouthEast Asia. Through this data, a trend of increase in temperature from year 2000 compared to 2015 can be seen. However, some countries such as: Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar, there is a sudden decrease from year 2010 compared to 2015. This could be caused by the reduction in the production of carbon. Due to the ban implemented by the Montreal Protocol on the use of CFCs, carbon emissions in southeast Asia has reduced therefore causing the decrease in temperature as there won’t be CFCs trapping heat in the troposphere that increases the temperature. However, countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei, and Thailand, has a different trend that shows a decrease in rate of increasing annual temperature. The difference between the 2010 temperature of those countries has a large margin from the year 2000 compared to the difference between 2015 temperature and the 2010 temperature. This result is caused by the introduction of Montreal Protocol to southeast Asian countries. As it can be seen how those countries has a big increase in temperature from year 2000 to 2010, but a small increase in temperature from 2010 to 2015. Although, there is an exception as there is an anomalous data from Singapore as the in 10 years from year 2000 is the same as the increase in 5 years from 2010 to 2015. With a shorter time span of 5 years, the increase is both 0.5ºC. This shows that the Montreal Protocol did not have an effect to Singapore, it didn’t decrease the rate of increase of annual temperature, moreover

ESS IA increased the rate. This suggests that, either Singapore did not use CFCs in the first place, or even with the ban of CFC, Singapore undergoes too much advancement that the carbon emission increases from industrialization.

Conclusion In conclusion, based on this investigation, the annual global temperature is affected by many factors such as, carbon emissions and usage of CFCs. Due to the Montreal Protocol imposing a ban on the use of CFCs in 197 countries, the global carbon emissions decrease drastically causing the CFC molecules in the air to be removed. This thus causes a loss in molecules that traps heat in the air, causing the annual temperature to significantly decrease in the rate of increase. From the investigation, it can be seen how the MEDCs with higher Human Development Index in South-East Asia does indeed have a decrease in the rate of increase in annual temperature, except for the Philippines which shows an anomalous data of decreasing in temperature. While the LEDCs with lower HDI shows a trend of a decrease in temperature from 2010 to 2015, this shows that the Montreal Protocol affected the LEDC more than the MEDC. However as seen in the data analysis, Singapore did not get affected by the Montreal Protocol as the increase in annual temperature from 2000 to 2010 is the same as 2010 to 2015 which means there is an average of more increase in annual temperature in the latter years. This might have been caused by the faster development in the industrialization in Singapore, causing the carbon emissions to keep increasing even without the presence of CFC. Ultimately, through this investigation, it can be concluded that the annual temperature does decrease in the rate of increase or even decrease due to the introduction of the Montreal Protocol.

Evaluation and Recommendations Strengths: The secondary data collected are from valid sources as it is completely monopolized by Bloomberg. The secondary data collected were data from years 2000, which was before the Montreal Protocol was introduced to South-East Asia and years 2010 and 2015 which were after the Montreal Protocol was introduced. This thus helps the comparison between annual temperature before, and after the Montreal Protocol is introduced showing a trend of annual temperature.

ESS IA Weaknesses: The secondary data collected comes from only year 2000, 2010, and 2015, which are only three years. This may be a problem as having less data from less years might show a different trend compared to data from many years. Other factors such as wind direction, ocean current, atmospheric circulation is not accounted in the data for the temperature as those factors could have been a huge impact to the annual temperature data.

Recommendations and Applications: In order to make this investigation more reliable, taking atmospheric circulations into account would benefit the analysis as it impacts the annual temperature of the different countries. Using data from every year will also show a better average result and hence show a better trend, rather than estimating the other years’ trend as it might affect the overall results. The results to this research can be used as a promotion to the countries and may raise awareness to create more environmental treaties in order to reduce the rate of increase of annual temperature. Furthermore, the design of this experiment can be further used for research purposes that will allow comparison on the effectiveness of other treaties that involve annual global temperature as it’s global issue.

Ethical Considerations: This investigation might create issues for the countries that are mentioned since it exposes the countries’ economical data which could affect the perspective of the countries’ background.

Works Cited Bloomberg, “Average Temperature by Country.” https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/temperature?continent=asia Last Accessed: 5 March 2019

ESS IA

“Human Development Reports” http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/trends Last Accessed: 5 March 2019 Mike Haseler, Scottish Sceptic, “Factors affecting global temperature.” http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/factors-affecting-global-temperature/ Last Accessed: 3 March 2019 World Weather Online, “Brunei Monthly Climate Averages” https://www.worldweatheronline.com/brunei-weather-averages/bn.aspx Last Accessed: 7 March 2019