Dr. Mario Molina

Dr. Mario Molina’s historic research on climate and atmospheric science has received the highest accolades available to science. In 1995 Dr. Molina was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his 1974 paper in Nature, which reported the discovery of the depleting effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the ozone layer. In awarding the prize the Nobel Committee wrote: “By explaining the chemical mechanisms that affect the thickness of the ozone layer, [these] researchers have contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences.”

Dr. Molina’s scientific discoveries, has helped shape national and environmental policy, and as a result, has largely contributed to the short and long-term wellbeing of all humanity.

From his strategic studies on energy and the environment at the non-profit Mario Molina Center in Mexico, to his ground-breaking climate change efforts as part of the Montreal Protocol, Dr. Molina has helped outline critical pathways which today hold the key to maintaining a global temperature change of ‘well below 2 degrees Celsius’, the safest temperature boundary outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement.

It is Dr. Molina’s early work that laid the scientific foundation for the agreement of Montreal Protocol in 1987. Dr. Molina has continued working to further secure climate benefits delivered by the Montreal Protocol culminating in the Protocol’s 2016 Kigali Amendment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which will provide climate mitigation equivalent to 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2050 and avoid up to 0.5°C of warming by the end of the century.