Deal reached to curb warming culprit
Nearly 200 nations agree to phase out gases used in ACs
Last week, we learned that the Paris climate agreement will go into effect in November after the European Union formally joined the accord, tipping it past the threshold needed to become a reality.
Now this week brings another major foray in international climate diplomacy, as close to 200 countries adopted an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are super-polluting, powerful greenhouse gases.
“The prospects for the future of our planet are bright,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement. McCarthy led a U.S. delegation to Kigali, Rwanda, where the deal was struck early Saturday after negotiations that ran through the night.
President Barack Obama also hailed the accord in a statement Saturday morning. “Today’s agreement caps off a critical 10 days in our global efforts to combat climate change,” he said. “In addition to today’s amendment, countries last week crossed the threshold for the Paris Agreement to enter into force and reached a deal to constrain international aviation emissions. Together, these steps show that, while diplomacy is never easy, we can work together to leave our children a planet that is safer, more prosperous, more secure, and more free than the one that was left for us.”
HFCs don’t get much attention, but when the original Montreal Protocol phased out chlorofluorocarbons, which were destroying the planet’s ozone layer, manufacturers had to find a replacement chemical to use as refrigerants and in other industrial applications.
Along came HFCs, which were much better for the ozone layer but, like CFCs, also happen to be a strong global warming agent. The chemicals are vastly more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 100 year time frame when it comes to warming the atmosphere.
Scientists fear that a forecast explosion in air conditioning all around the world could result in so much HFC leakage that it could warm the global temperature by an additional half a degree Celsius by the end of the century, which would blow past warming thresholds outlined in the Paris agreement.
Under the “Kigali Amendment” approved early Saturday, the planned reduction of HFCs would have an impact similar to the removal of 80 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 35 years, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Paul Bledsoe, who worked on climate issues under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, said the agreement could help “lessen climate change impacts like sea-level rise, wildfires, and extreme storms and floods.” In addition, “it should jump-start other efforts to get to prevent runaway climate change,” he said.
Under the new agreement, developed and developing countries will have different “freeze dates,” or years when they must peak their HFC emissions and then begin to bring them down steadily over time. For developed nations like the U.S., the date will be 2019. For the majority of developing nations, it will be 2024, except for a few nations, including India and Pakistan, which will take until 2028.
“We came to take a half a degree Celsius out of future warming, and we won about 90 percent of our climate prize,” said Durwood Zaelke, the head of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development.
Zaelke noted that economic forces will also kick in to push manufacturers away from using HFCs. And that could make up the difference.
The upshot is that on November 7, when nations of the world gather in Marrakesh, Morocco, for a key United Nations climate meeting, they will not only have the Paris agreement in force far earlier than anyone initially expected, but will also be operating with a new HFC regime.