European customers want to replace tetrabrom with nonhalogenated, or more ozone-layer-friendly, flame retardants.

FORBES: Paddling Upstream

The Montreal protocol, which banned various ozone-depleting chemicals, has left the ozone layer's long-term prospects looking quite bonny.

ECONOMIST: Geoengineering

Talks are complicated by the fact that -- unlike the ozone layer, in which it was clear solar rays that got through cause cancer -- climate change's health effects are generally indirect.

CNN: A truly global problem

But fewer ozone-eaters in the lower atmosphere mean that the ozone layer should eventually heal itself, perhaps by 2050 or so.

ECONOMIST: Phew, the ozone layer may be saved

Dinosaur wind contained a high proportion of methane gas - powerful enough to damage the ozone layer, said the China Youth Daily quoting a French scientist.

BBC: Ill wind 'killed dinosaurs'

This is because it takes years for the compounds to reach the ozone layer's home in the stratosphere, 15-50 kilometres (10-30 miles) above the earth.

ECONOMIST: Phew, the ozone layer may be saved

The ozone layer protects living things on the Earth's surface from the Sun's ultra-violet radiation.

BBC: Ill wind 'killed dinosaurs'