But now, new research suggests that the environmental measure may have had the unintended effect of worsening climate change - at least in the short run.
Once they were steeply curtailed, however, more solar radiation was able to stay trapped in our atmosphere - a phenomenon that could help explain why 2023 was the hottest year on record by a huge margin.
For reference, a global doubling of CO2 levels would cause about 4 watts per square meter of radiative forcing - so it's a 'big number,' study co-author Tianle Yuan at the University of Maryland told The Guardian.
"We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average [since 1880]," Yuan added.
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