Stephen O. Andersen

Andersen began his professional career in 1974 at the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (now Earthjustice), where he provided litigation support for cases including energy conservation, forestry, mining, national parks and marine mammal protection.

1987 proved to be a watershed moment in the effort to stop ozone depletion, which increased risks of skin cancer and threatened to wipe out crops and ecosystems, among many adverse impacts.

At EPA, Andersen's responsibilities included analysis of regulatory impact, cost, and trade, technology co-operation, and sector projects in halons, foams, mobile air conditioning, and military uses.

[17] Andersen with K. Madhava Sarma, the first executive director of the Ozone Secretariat and EPA colleague Kristen N. Taddonio, published a two volume history of the Montreal Protocol diplomacy, management, leadership, and technology transfer.

In 2009, Andersen retired from the EPA and joined Durwood Zaelke at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD) as director of research,[1] where he has continued in his pursuit of ozone and climate protection.

[21] The two Velders papers helped build the foundation that inspired other scientists to calculate and communicate the interlinkages of ozone with climate and the importance of phasing out ODSs and phasing-down HFCs.

[24] Andersen now concentrates on achieving the HFC phasedown as quickly as feasible with higher energy efficiency at affordable prices, while stopping the dumping of technically inferior appliances,[25] and narrowing the Montreal Protocol exemption for feedstocks used to produce plastics that pollute oceans, rivers and land with hazardous and toxic waste.

Professor Ted Parson from the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said, “for over a decade, Andersen brilliantly led the Montreal Protocol’s Technology and Economic Assessment Panel process.

[29] Emphasizing the importance of the Montreal Protocol, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees added, “in the face of threats to humanity’s future, we need to be thinking globally, rationally and long-term, empowered by technology.