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Impact of Phasing out Super Greenhouse Gases equal to 10 years of global carbon dioxide emissions

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release July 10 2009

A proposal to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) would prevent the release of 118 to 224 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions into the atmosphere between 2010 and 2050, according to a new report released to coincide with a meeting of the 195 member-nation Montreal Protocol in Geneva next week.

The potential emission savings are equivalent to more than 50 years of the European Union’s annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

“The HFC Imperative –Essential Action for Global Climate Protection” released by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international NGO, urges that the HFCs, industrial chemicals widely used in air conditioning and refrigeration, must be phased out by the Montreal Protocol to prevent irreversible climate change. The Montreal Protocol has already successfully acted to eliminate other types of refrigeration chemicals in order to protect the ozone layer and is increasingly viewed as being ideally suited to address the HFC problem.

HFCs are “super” greenhouse gases, with global warming impacts hundreds to thousands of times higher than CO2.

A proposed amendment by Micronesia and Mauritius to next week’s meeting would give the Montreal Protocol authority to immediately begin a phase out on production and consumption of HFCs, providing the world with a unique opportunity to advance efforts to combat climate change.

A recent scientific study found that if the use of HFCs continues as projected, HFC emissions could equal up to 45% of all CO2 emissions by 2050. The data was based on a scenario where CO2 were stabilized at 450ppm, roughly equating to a global warming of 2 degrees Celsius .

Commenting of the new scientific findings Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme said: “Action to freeze and then reduce this group of gases could buy the world the equivalent of a decades-worth of C02 emissions.”

Primarily used in refrigerators and air conditioning, HFCs have become standard replacements for chemicals which damage the ozone layer, namely CFCs and HCFCs. HFC use is expected to boom due to cuts in HCFC consumption under a 2007 Montreal Protocol agreement, and as developing nations such as China and India modernize further.

Fionnuala Walravens, EIA’s Global Environment Campaigner stated: “Left unchecked, HFC use will prove fatal to domestic and international efforts to arrest and reverse climate change. The Montreal Protocol has more than twenty years experience of working with the industrial sectors that are now shifting to HFCs, and is uniquely suited to take on the urgent task of controlling and phasing out HFCs”.

ENDS


For more information contact:
Julian Newman, EIA: 0207 354 7976
Bill Dishington, EIA: 0207 354 7972

Editors notes

• EIA is attending the 29th meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Geneva from 15th to 18th July. A workshop for a dialogue on high global-warming-potential alternatives for ozone-depleting substances takes place on 14th July.
• At the recent Group of Eight summit, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States agreed to try to limit global warming to just 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels by 2050 and set the goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, with the global goal of a 50 per cent cut.
• EIA was the first NGO to call for an HFC phase out at the climate talks in Bali 2007. Since then EIA has lobbied governments and policy makers all over the world arguing that an HFC phase-out is the low hanging fruit of climate change mitigation.

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