EPA moves to restrict powerful planet-heating gases in air conditioners and fridges
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved to restrict the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), extremely powerful planet-heating gases found in refrigerators and air conditioning units that are the target of an international push for phasing out.
In the first move by Joe Biden’s administration to directly cut a greenhouse gas, the EPA has proposed a rule to drastically reduce the production and import of HFCs in the US by 85% over the next 15 years. The step is a significant one as Biden seeks to cut total US emissions in half by the end of the decade.
It’s estimated that if the world phased out HFCs the planet would avoid 0.5C in heating by the end of the century – a huge figure in the context of global climate goals that seek to avoid what would be a disastrous 1.5C rise in the Earth’s average temperature.
“With this proposal, EPA is taking another significant step under President Biden’s ambitious agenda to address the climate crisis,” said Michael Regan, administrator of theEPA. “By phasing down HFCs, which can be hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, EPA is taking a major action to help keep global temperature rise in check.”
HFCs were widely installed in air conditioning units, heat pumps and refrigeration as a replacement for chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs), which were found to be depleting the Earth’s ozone layer. But HFCs have the drawback of being a potent greenhouse gas, thousands of times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and a significant driver of dangerous global heating.
Industry has developed more climate-friendly alternatives to HFCs and a number of large companies such as Walmart and Whole Foods have pledged to phase out the use of the chemicals in their operations.
However, there are still widespread leaks of of HFCs from the supermarket sector, while air conditioning for homes and businesses, as well as commercial refrigeration, also continue to spew out large volumes of the pollutants.
According to the EPA, its new HFCs rule would cut the equivalent of 4.7bn metric tons of CO2 by 2050, roughly equivalent to the entire emissions coming from three years in the US power sector. In 2036 alone, the final year of the planned cuts, the EPA said that the rule would cut equivalent emissions of one in seven vehicles currently used in the US.
Unusually for a climate measure, the reduction in HFCs has bipartisan support in Congress, as well as support from affected businesses. The rule will “help create the certainty necessary” for US businesses, according to Stephen Yurek, chief executive of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute trade group.
Congress agreed at the end of of last year to the 85% cut in HFCs over the next 15 years but progress was stymied by Donald Trump’s administration, which reversed previous requirements that companies must detect and repair
leaks of the pollutant from their appliances. The former president also refused to allow the Senate to ratify a treaty signed by 197 nations including the US in Kigali, Rwanda, that agreed to phase out HFCs. Biden, who has rejoined the US to the Paris climate agreement, has said he will also look to add the US to the Kigali amendment by sending it to the Senate for its approval.
The EPA said it hopes to finalize its new HFC rule by the end of the year.