Richard Benedick, Negotiator of Landmark Ozone Treaty, Dies at 88

A May 1985 report within the journal Nature was alarming. High above Antarctica, a large gap had opened within the ozone defend that protects life on earth from the solar’s ultraviolet rays.

The discovering confirmed what scientists had warned of because the Nineteen Seventies: Atmospheric ozone was being damaged down by the large use of chlorofluorocarbons, chemical substances generally known as CFCs, which have been present in aerosol sprays, refrigeration and air-conditioning.

Just over two years later, dozens of countries assembly in Montreal signed an settlement to considerably scale back CFCs, which the Environmental Protection Agency estimated would stop 27 million deaths from pores and skin cancers.

“This is perhaps the most historically significant international environmental agreement,” Richard E. Benedick, the chief United States negotiator, stated on the time.

Ever since, the Montreal Protocol, because the pact is understood, has stood as a milestone of collective motion within the face of a planetary environmental risk, in addition to a rebuke of the shortage of worldwide resolve to deal with the extra dire and complicated risk of local weather change.

Mr. Benedick, who was a profession diplomat within the State Department when the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, and who patiently wore down opposition from overseas nations whereas withstanding highly effective inside critics within the Reagan administration, died on March 16 in Falls Church, Va. He was 88.

His daughter, Julianna Benedick, confirmed the dying. She stated that he had suffered from superior dementia and that he had been residing in a reminiscence care house since 2018.

It is not any small paradox {that a} world treaty to handle atmospheric air pollution was negotiated throughout the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who was elected as a champion of enterprise and a sworn enemy of presidency laws.

But help for addressing the specter of CFCs to human well being was attainable as a result of environmental points have been much less bitterly partisan than they might later change into, and since U.S. trade — mainly DuPont, the most important maker of the chemical substances — most well-liked a world treaty to the opportunity of extra draconian cuts by Congress.

Still, as Mr. Benedick wrote in a 1991 e-book in regards to the highway to a deal, “Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet,” success was by no means assured throughout the 9 months by which the treaty was hammered out. “Most observers in and out of government,” he wrote, “believed at that time that an agreement on international regulation of CFCs would be impossible to reach.”

Mr. Benedick, whom colleagues described as energetic and dogged, was instrumental to the success. “He was a tenacious guy; he was like a terrier with a bone,” John D. Negroponte, then an assistant secretary of state who was Mr. Benedick’s superior and ally, stated in an interview. “The atmosphere in this town — it was an uphill fight; I don’t think it would have happened without him.”

In the Reagan administration, leaders of the State Department and the Environmental Protection Administration favored regulating CFCs. But in the course of the worldwide talks, robust opposition emerged from Donald P. Hodel, the inside secretary, and William R. Graham Jr., the White House science adviser.

Mr. Hodel stated Americans worrying about pores and skin most cancers from ozone loss mustn’t anticipate extra authorities regulation, however ought to attempt “personal protection,” specifically hats, sun shades and sunscreen.

His feedback, as soon as leaked to the press, have been broadly mocked, inspiring editorial cartoons of fish and animals — that are additionally in danger from ultraviolet rays — in sun shades. Environmentalists greeted Mr. Hodel at a news convention with their faces smeared white with sunscreen.

Other opposition got here from overseas nations, mainly Japan, the Soviet Union and the European bloc, which argued that the scientific hyperlink between CFCs and ozone depletion was not proved.

The State Department despatched key scientists from the U.S. authorities’s science companies to Moscow, Tokyo and Brussels to coach their counterparts.

“I think it helped get the message across,” Mr. Negroponte stated. “Dick was the brains behind that.”

In the tip, President Reagan got here down on the facet of Mr. Benedick and the State Department, overruling the anti-regulatory faction in his administration. Among the explanations instructed for the choice was that Mr. Reagan had not too long ago had a cancerous development eliminated.

The Montreal Protocol, which required slicing using CFCs by half, was signed by 24 nations in September 1987. It was ratified unanimously the subsequent 12 months by the U.S. Senate. In 1990, the protocol was toughened to ultimately part out CFCs fully. Today, almost each nation on the planet has banned them.

Concentrations of long-lived ozone-depleting chemical substances within the stratosphere have progressively declined, with the ozone gap above Antarctica anticipated to heal by the 2060s, in keeping with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Richard Elliott Benedick was born on May 10, 1935, within the Bronx. His father, Lester L. Benedick, was within the insurance coverage enterprise. His mom, Rose (Katz) Benedick, died whereas giving start, and because of this, Mr. Benedick’s daughter stated, “He never liked celebrating his birthday.”

Lester Benedick remarried to Jean (Shamsky) Benedick.

Richard, raised within the Bronx, earned a bachelor’s diploma in economics from Columbia University, an M.A. in economics from Yale and a Ph.D. from the Harvard Business School. His dissertation was titled “Industrial Finance in Iran.”

In 1957 he married Hildegard Schulz, whom he met on the International House at Yale. She accompanied Mr. Benedick, then a overseas service officer specializing in financial growth within the State Department, to postings in Iran, Pakistan, France and Germany. The couple divorced in 1982.

Mr. Benedick’s second marriage, to Helen Freeman, additionally led to divorce. Later he had a long-term companion, Irene Federwisch. In addition to his daughter, from his first marriage, he’s survived by a son, Andreas Benedick, additionally from that marriage; a granddaughter; and two great-grandchildren.

At the time of the Montreal Protocol, Mr. Benedick was deputy assistant secretary of state for surroundings, well being and pure sources and coordinator of inhabitants affairs.

“Richard was energetic, even passionate,” stated William Ok. Reilly, who was president of the World Wildlife Fund, the place Mr. Benedick was a fellow after negotiating the Montreal Protocol. “It was a career highlight for him and for the United States, a masterful diplomatic achievement.”

When he returned to the State Department beneath President George H.W. Bush, Mr. Benedick tried to use ozone diplomacy to the problem of worldwide warming, which scientists had begun to warn was probably the most perilous environmental risk. A authorities scientist, James Hansen, instructed the Senate and the press in 1988 that the proof that world warming had begun might be detected “with 99 percent confidence.” His assertion grew to become front-page news.

Mr. Reilly, who led the E.P.A. beneath Mr. Bush, stated the politics of the administration didn’t favor motion. Secretary of State James A. Baker III “chose to recuse himself from climate,” Mr. Reilly stated. Mr. Bush’s chief of workers, John H. Sununu, vetoed a proposal from the E.P.A. to have the president suggest a worldwide treaty on carbon emissions. When Mr. Hansen reappeared earlier than the Senate in 1989, the White House censored his testimony to inject doubts that human exercise induced local weather change.

Mr. Benedick was not a scientist, however he was a fantastic admirer of nature and the outside.

“He absolutely loved taking our family to the national parks,” Ms. Benedick, his daughter, stated. “He planned five cross-country trips when we were children in the ’70s and ’80s. We’d fly to California and visited pretty much every national park driving east. He’d have us get up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise over Yosemite or Bryce or Zion or Monument Valley.”