Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Ozone Treaty Cools Down Global Warming

MONTREAL, Sep 22 2007 (IPS) - The United States was the protagonist in talks for moving faster to eliminate gases that damage the atmospheric ozone layer and aggravate climate change.

The 191 member nations of the Montreal Protocol took an historic step forward on climate change with an agreement to accelerate for completion within the decade the elimination of ozone-destroying chemicals that are also powerful global warming gases.

The United States played a key role at the 19th Conference of Parties to the Montreal Protocol, along with Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the European Community, in calling for a faster phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), chemicals used in refrigerants and air conditioning.

That would be the equivalent of as much as 38 billion tons of greenhouse gases, roughly five times more than the emissions reductions stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol — the only obligatory global climate treaty — according to the Montreal Protocol's Technology and Economic Assessment Panel. Note that the 38 billion tons would accrue over 20 to 25 years while the Kyoto agreement spans five years.

This would reduce by at least 3.5 percent the global emissions of greenhouse gases in a period of 20 to 25 years, while the Kyoto Protocol only prescribes a five-percent reduction of emissions from the developed countries that ratified the treaty, with a deadline of 2012.

To reach the agreement, the wealthier countries agreed to provide several hundred million dollars from 2008 to 2012 to assist developing countries like China, is the world's largest manufacturer of HCFCs, make the transition to other chemicals and technologies.

The conference took place Sep. 11-21 in this Canadian city, where 20 years ago nations signed the treaty to restore the ozone layer in the Earth's stratosphere which protects flora and fauna from harmful solar radiation.

Despite the enormous differences between many countries here, there is a 20-year track record at the Montreal Protocol meetings of compromise, flexibility and achieving agreements.

Our life-giving sun would be a lot more dangerous today if agreement had not been reached in September 1987 by 24 countries to support the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Without that agreement there would be “20 million more cases of skin cancer and 130 million more cases of eye cataracts, not to speak of the damage to human immune systems, wildlife and agriculture,” Achim Steiner, UN Undersecretary General and executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), told a press conference here.

Thanks to the treaty that set up a binding schedule for the phase out of ozone-damaging chemicals, primarily chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, today 95 percent of those chemicals are gone, mainly replaced by the much less damaging HCFCs.

But these, too, will be eventually phased out in developed countries by 2015, and in developing countries by 2030 — 10 years sooner than previously agreed.

India and China's rapid economic growth has led to skyrocketing production of HCFC-22, used mainly in air conditioning. In China, ownership of air conditioners soared to 87.2 per 100 urban households in 2006, up from 24.4 seven years ago.

HCFC-22 is only five percent as harmful to the ozone layer as the CFCs it replaced, but its global warming impact is more than 10,000 greater than carbon dioxide, Romina Picolotti, Argentina's secretary of environment, told Tierramérica.

An accelerated phase-out will mean eliminating the equivalent of up to 38 million tons of carbon dioxide and speeding the recovery of the ozone layer by a few years.

“With a little more effort we can help solve two major environmental problems,” Picolotti said.

“An HCFC production freeze should go into effect in 2008,” said Alexander von Bismarck, campaigns director of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency.

This means developing countries could continue HCFC production but not beyond the amounts made in 2008, instead of 2015, as currently mandated under the Protocol.

Production by industrialized countries was capped in 2004. Setting an early date reduces the likelihood of overproduction and stockpiling of the chemical, he said.

“Our investigations have shown that HCFCs are available in Latin American and South Asian countries and at mysteriously low prices, suggesting there is a massive oversupply,” said Von Bismarck.

Although CFCs and HCFCs are powerful greenhouse gases they are not covered under the Kyoto Protocol, making it critical for the Montreal Protocol to address these, he added.

Substitute chemicals for HCFCs are coming and there are other existing technologies such as butane gas refrigerators. “It will take a little investment to make them safer and better,” he said.

Industry favors a rapid production freeze for developing countries, says Mack McFarland, chief atmospheric scientist for DuPont, a multinational chemical company and major U.S. manufacturer of HCFCs.

“Why build new HCFC plants and equipment when the technology is obsolete? If the freeze comes sooner, there will be less to convert later,” McFarland told Tierramérica.

Some, but not all, HCFC air conditioners can be converted to other gases. And there aren't easy substitutes for some uses. DuPont recently developed a new gas with very low global warming potential for automobile air conditioners because the European Union banned the use of HCFCs.

“I don't think the transition is going to be that costly,” McFarland said.

Another issue that was hotly debated in the Palais des Congres du Montreal was funding assistance for developing countries.

Some 2.2 billion dollars has been available in the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol to help 146 countries phase out production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals. Now hundreds of millions more dollars are needed.

The United States will continue to share the burden and costs of compliance for developing countries under an accelerated HFCF phase out, Claudia McMurray, U.S. assistant secretary for oceans, environment and science, told the Protocol members in the opening plenary meeting.

“It's a nice change to see U.S. leadership at an international environmental forum,” said David Doniger, climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. environmental group.

“An agreement would be a good for the ozone layer and climate change,” Doniger said in an interview. However HCFCs are not the major cause global warming, the burning of fossil fuels is.

Any agreement here should not be used as an excuse by the United States to do nothing about carbon dioxide at the December UN climate meeting in Bali, Indonesia, he said.