"It's a victory for diplomacy and for science," and for the fact that all the nations in the world worked together, said the Nobel Prize chemist who first forecasted the coming ozone depletion in 1974.

A United Nations scientific panel confirmed that our protective ozone layer is healing itself since countries signed on to a treaty in the late 1980s that phased out man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which caused the problem.

From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels climbed 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes, according to NASA scientist Paul A. Newman, who co-chaired the every-four-years ozone assessment by 300 scientists, released by the United Nations.

UN leaders called the effort to get rid of ozone-destroying substances "one of the great success stories of international collective action," and are hoping that the world can similarly unite in the fight to lessen climate change.

197 nations signed the ozone treaty agreements, making the Montreal Protocols the first to be unanimously adopted by all members of the United Nations.

(READ the AP story from the Dallas Morning News)

Animation / image by UNEP