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Production and use of climate-warming refrigerator coolants
known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) will be phased down over the
next 14 years through a trading scheme the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) proposed 3 May in line with a
congressional directive.
HFCs are a synthetic class of chemicals that were initially
promoted and used as alternatives to ozone-depleting substances to
meet the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Since then, scientists have
noted that these chemicals have very high global warming potential
and pushed for their replacement as well.
Describing HFCs as "highly potent greenhouse gases" that are
commonly used in refrigerators, air conditioners, foam insulation,
and fire aerosols, EPA said, "This phasedown will decrease the
production and import of HFCs in the United States by 85% over the
next 15 years."
The proposal to phase out HFCs, which is the among the first few
actions taken by EPA under the leadership of Administrator Michael
Regan to address global warming pollutants, complies with the
bipartisan American Innovation and
Manufacturing (AIM) Act of 2020 that was folded into the
omnibus federal spending bill (H.R. 133) that Congress approved at
the end of 2020.
The agency on 23 April also approved the use of several low
global warming potential refrigerants for use in split-system air
conditioners and heat pumps as an alternative to HFCs.
"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," Regan said in a statement accompanying the proposal.
Seeking Comment
The AIM Act directed EPA to issue a final rule on an allowance
allocation and trading program by 23 September.
To meet the congressionally mandated deadline, EPA is seeking
comment for 45 days on the baseline, which it has created based on
historical emissions, against which the agency plans to make
allocations, no later than 1 October, so that trading can begin in
earnest in 2022.
EPA said its proposal is time-limited to 2023, and it will
revisit its allowance allocation for 2024 based on how the trading
program proceeds over the next two years.
President Joe Biden announced 22 April a goal to
halve GHGs across the US economy by 2030. EPA said the rule could
help the US meet this climate goal, though the contribution of HFCs
to total US GHGs is small in comparison to CO2 releases. In 2019,
EPA reported HFCs as well as other chlorinated hydrocarbons
represented 2.8%, or 170.6 million mt CO2-equivalent, of total US
GHGs.
Nonetheless, EPA said the phasedown of these chemicals would
eliminate three years of US power sector emissions, or 4.7 million
mt CO2e, based on 2019 levels because of the high global warming
potential.
Global and local support
David Doniger, senior strategic director with the nonprofit
Natural Resources Defense Council Climate & Clean Energy
Program, credit EPA for "wasting no time implementing bipartisan
legislation that won support ranging from NRDC and other
environmental and public health advocates to industry and the
Chamber of Commerce."
The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute
(AHRI), the main trade association in Washington DC representing
manufacturers of air conditioning, heating, and commercial
refrigeration, and water heating equipment, that had been urging
the EPA as recently as 13 April for a rulemaking, did not respond
to calls seeking a comment, but reportedly has called the proposal
a "welcome" start."
In a May 3 email, Durwood Zaelke, president of the Washington
D.C.-based nonprofit Institute for Governance & Sustainable
Development (IGSD), said the EPA rule "is another down payment on
his promise to keep warming to below 1.5C and to make 2030 the
decade of action."
EPA said the rule is consistent with the global phasedown of
HFCs through trading as outlined in the 2016
Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that
Deplete the Ozone Layer, an international agreement ratified by
more than 115 countries.
"The US, China, France, Germany and Japan have all indicated
support for the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, and are
moving forward with domestic policies to meet its requirements to
phase down this class of chemicals," Kristen Taddonio, IGSD senior
climate and energy advisor, told IHS Markit.
At the Leaders Summit on Climate on 22 April, Chinese President
Xi Jinping also announced that China will "accept the Kigali
amendment to the Montreal Protocol" and "to strengthen the control
of non-CO2 greenhouse gases" He reaffirmed the acceptance of the
international treaty following his joint announcement with French
President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel of
Germany on 16 April. All three leaders said they would accept the
treaty.
In a 27 April press conference, the Chinese Ministry of Ecology
and Environment said it was taking measures to set up inventories
of other GHGs, such as the HFCs, to get a better handle on
emissions. The ministry said although it hasn't included any
specific plans for phasing out these chemicals in its current 14th
five-year plan, but it already is taking steps on how it will do so
in the next five-year plan.
"We are confident that all countries will ratify Kigali because
every other past amendment to the Montreal Protocol has been
ratified by every country to the U.N. and the Montreal Protocol is
the only treaty in the world that has achieved universal
ratification," Zaelke said.
Bipartisan backing
Although the US Senate has not formally ratified the Kigali
Treaty, it is not expected to get as much pushback. The AIM Act,
which implemented the treaty's provisions including the trading
program, had the backing of both Democrats and Republicans alike in
Congress, including Senators Thomas Carper, Delaware-Democrat, who
chairs the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that
oversees the EPA, and John Barrasso, Republican-Wyoming, the
committee's former chairman.
This is despite Barrasso making no bones about his opposition to
Biden's decision to join the Paris Agreement, and the president's
decision to announce a climate goal that sets what Barrasso sees as
"punishing targets" even as China and Russia "continue to increase
emissions at will."
Posted 03 May 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate and Energy Research Analyst