China emitting banned CFCS: study

A chemical banned around the globe for the past 30 years has made a resurgence. And a new study points to China as the culprit.

In the 1980s, countries came together to sign The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, a landmark treaty designed to halt and reduce the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), chemicals used in fridges and foams that had the side effect of tearing through the Earth’s ozone layer.

The protocol, signed by 197 countries, including China, contributed to a significant reduction in harmful CFCS, which allowed for a slow healing of the damaged ozone layer.

That is until last year, when scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association found that global emissions of Trichlorofluorome thane (CFC-11) have been increasing since 2013.

The increase implied that someone was secretly violating the Montreal Protocol.

But the limitations of measuring devices meant the location of the polluter could only be traced to somewhere in East Asia.

In a study published in Nature on Wednesday, scientists from the University of Bristol, Kyungpook National University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that between 40 and 60 per cent of total global CFC-11 emissions originated from eastern China.

With the help of an international network of measurement devices designed to identify and track gases in the atmosphere, the team behind the study found data from their devices in Korea and Japan have spiked since 2013. After analyzing weather and wind patterns to determine the origin of the gas increase, it led them to eastern mainland China, around the Shandong province.

“It wasn’t entirely a surprise,” said the University of Bristol’s Matthew Rigby, lead author of the study. A few months after the initial report was released last year, both the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the New York Times published reports in which Chinese manufacturers in the region confirmed they were using CFC-11 in the production of foams.

Manufacturers told the EIA they continued to use the banned product because of its better quality and cheaper price. The New York Times reported some factories were producing the gas in secret, while other manufacturers said the local governments turned a blind eye.

Since 2013, emissions have increased by about 7,000 tons yearly in the area, slowing the rate at which holes in the ozone layer are repairing themselves.

“That’s more than double the emissions we were expecting from China at the time,” said Rigby “Was this enough to account for a substantial fraction of the global emissions rise that we saw? What we’ve found in this study is that, yes, it is globally significant.”

Rigby said CFC-11 is about “5,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the climate.”

The Chinese government appears to have started to crack down on the rogue plants. The action included arrests and the closure of at least two illicit facilities producing CFC-11.

“The government has followed up on the companies we identified in 2018,” said Clare Perry of EIA.

“It has undertaken a nationwide enforcement effort, including raising the penalties for using CFC-11, and has shut down at least two CFC11 production sites.”

Due to the limited locations of their monitoring network, Rigby said the study team cannot conclusively determine where the rest of the CFC emissions were coming from.

According to a 2018 United Nations report, due to the progress of the Montreal Protocol, the huge ozone hole that formed above Antarctica could be completely healed by mid-century.

But Rigby said if increased emissions from eastern China were not stopped soon, the healing process could be delayed by “potentially decades.”