![]() ![]() We recognize that the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances is resulting in a rapid increase in the use and release of high global-warming potential hydrofluorocarbons to the environment. ![]() Deep in the final document adopted by world leaders in Rio, paragraph 222 speaks directly to HFCs: No one pretends this will happen any time soon.Īs the parties gather in Bangkok, the North American and island nations have relaunched their proposals, and the question is whether China, India, and Brazil will keep blocking, or whether one or more is ready to engage.Ī sign of possible progress came from the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Summit in June. They argued that HFCs’ heat-trapping consequences can be addressed only under the climate treaties. As one delegate put it last year, “we created this mess, and we have to clean it up.”īut India and China blocked action, with assistance from Brazil. They agreed that the Montreal treaty is responsible for assuring the safety of replacement chemicals. Support has grown each year, and last November 108 countries endorsed using the Montreal Protocol to tackle HFCs. Two similar proposals to gradually phase down HFCs have been advanced for several years by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and by Micronesia and other small island nations. That's equivalent to 12 times the current annual carbon pollution of the United States. As the New York Times recently reported, air conditioning sales are growing at 20 percent per year in rapidly industrializing nations such as India and China.Īvoiding that HFC growth by transitioning to safer chemicals that trap much less heat could avoid an amazing amount of climate-changing pollution – equal to 88 billion metric tons of CO2 worldwide through 2050. Imagine what this roaring-hot, extreme-weather summer would have been like with all that extra heat-trapping fuel in the atmosphere.īut those benefits are now being eroded by the breakneck growth of HFCs as replacement chemicals in air conditioning, refrigeration, insulating foams, and other uses. Scientists tell us that phasing out CFCs worldwide delivered a climate protection bonus equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2 reductions in 2010 alone – more than five times the carbon reductions of the Kyoto Protocol.Īnother way to look at it: The CFC phase-out bought us a 10-year delay on warming. To recap, the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-destroying chemicals under the Montreal Protocol has brought huge climate side-benefits because these chemicals are also powerful heat-trapping pollutants. There they will look for common ground on whether use this treaty to tackle some of the most potent heat-trapping pollutants, the “super greenhouse gases” known as hydrofluorcarbons, or HFCs. I’ve just arrived in Bangkok, where negotiators from around the world will convene next week for the mid-year meeting of the Montreal Protocol, the world’s most successful environmental treaty. ![]()
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