Governments have moved closer to curbing the use of chemicals commonly used as coolants in refrigerators, air conditioners, hair spray and other household items in what some say would be among their biggest climate decisions ever.
The obscure round of UN ozone treaty talks in Geneva, which few people are following, laid the groundwork this week for a possible decision in Uganda in November to halt the promotion of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are manmade chemicals not found naturally in the environment and are considered greenhouse gases.
The US, Canada and Mexico gave the talks a boost by joining the island nations of Micronesia and Mauritius in petitioning to amend the ozone treaty known as the 1987 Montreal Protocol to drastically cut production and use of HFCs.
By 2050, scientists predict HFCs could account for 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases.
“It’s a controversial issue that has been discussed for the second year. It’s gaining support and should the parties decide on this it would be the most important [climate] decision,” said Marco Gonzalez, executive secretary of the UN’s ozone secretariat, which administers the treaty.
The 196-nation ozone treaty has long encouraged industries to use HFCs as ozone-friendly replacement chemicals for chlorofluorocarbons, which cause a seasonal ozone “hole” to form high in the stratosphere near the South Pole.
CFCs destroy ozone, the atmospheric layer that helps protect against the sun’s most harmful rays. They also trap the earth’s heat, contributing to a rise in average surface temperatures.
HFCs decompose faster than CFCs, because they contain hydrogen. However, like CFCs, they are considered potent greenhouse gases that harm the climate — up to 10,000 times worse than carbon dioxide emissions.
Until recently, nations had overlooked the global warming impacts of some of the replacement chemicals — hydrochloroflourocarbons (HCFCs) and their byproducts, HFCs — whose use has grown because of the Montreal treaty.
Then in 2007, governments agreed to speed the freeze of production and consumption of HCFCs in 2013 to fight global warming.
“If the HFC amendment is adopted by the Montreal Protocol this year, it will be single biggest and by far and away most significant climate mitigation measure ever taken in history,” said Samuel LaBudde, an atmospheric campaign director with the Washington-based Environmental Investigation Agency, who was attending the talks.
“It could buy the world five to 10 years from an irreversible tipping point for runaway climate change,” he said.
Discussion at the Swiss talks has also focused on a request by the US, Canada and Mexico to have the ozone treaty assume responsibility for destroying HFC-23, a byproduct of the refrigerant HCFC-22.
A global fund run by the UN and World Bank powers the ozone treaty, with about US$150 million spent a year to help nations comply by phasing out CFCs.
The fund has helped prompt companies to switch from CFCs to HCFCs, HFCs and other chemicals commonly used as coolants. But under the separate Kyoto climate treaty, the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism also pays companies to incinerate HFC-23, rather than let it vent into the atmosphere.
Environmental groups say the firms are essentially being awarded billions of dollars for carbon-cutting projects that give them an incentive to produce more HCFC-22 — just to have more of the lucrative byproduct to destroy.
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