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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

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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.
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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.
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Independent Variables: Carbon Emission, Montreal Protocol
Dependent Variables: Annual Temperature Change
Controlled Variables:
Controlled Variable
Location of the countries
(South-East Asia)
MEDCs:
(Singapore, Malaysia,
Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand)
LEDCs:
(Vietnam, Lao PDR, The
Philippines, Myanmar,
Cambodia)
Year of data collected
(2000, 2010, 2015)
Variables
How to Control
Researching data about the
Human Development Index
of only South-East Asian
countries in order to classify
the countries into groups of
LEDC and MEDC.
Excerpt data only from
years 2000, 2010, 2015,
from the secondary data
collected.
Why should it be
controlled?
The location of countries
should be controlled as it
will allow a more accurate
result as the research will
be kept at one location and
annual temperature of that
specific location will be
easily compared between
years.
To find out the difference in
annual temperature in the
countries before the
Montreal Protocol was
introduced to the South-
East 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.
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 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
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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 The Indonesia Vietnam Lao PDR Cambodia Myanmar
Philippines

2000 2010 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
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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, south-
east 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
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Annual Temperature (2000-2015)

30
ANNUAL TEMPERATURE/ ºC

25

20

15

10

2000 2010 2015

It can be seen from this table that the annual temperature of the 10 countries in South-
East 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
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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.
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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
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“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