The problem with CFCs was that they were catalyzing destruction of the ozone layer, a hole in which was being seen opening over the polar regions.

The ozone layer blocks UV radiation, which is deadly to life if there's too much of it, and not much killing of life had been seen up to that point because there's not a lot of surface life at the polar regions.

The concern was that if the holes continued to expand, they would get big enough to start letting excessive UV through to the parts of the planet where there *is* a lot of surface life.

In that case, international reaction was relatively fast compared to something like CO2 emissions because it was easy to find a replacement, and so they got the results they were looking for, which was cessation of expansion of the ozone hole, and thus no UV irradiation of surface life in the areas further towards the equator happened, so there was no change to the environment, and that's what they wanted to see.

That's the kind of result they're looking for if they can stop excessive CO2 emmisions, namely, no change... although in the case of CO2 reduction, they'd like to see some reversal to get things back to where they were, because the arctic ice cap has shrunk 30%, and they'd like to get it back to what it was 50 years ago.

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