An opportunity to score a major win for climate

The 25th Meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol opened in Bangkok, Thailand on October 21, offering a historic opportunity to tackle climate change and prevent the release into the atmosphere of more than 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) by the middle of the century through a global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) revealed in a news release. HFCs are a family of super greenhouse gases hundreds to thousands of time more potent than CO2, it added.

According to EIA, after years of political deadlock, recent agreements by China, the USA and the G20 have paved the way to phase out the super greenhouse gases, and to encourage both developed and emerging nations to switch to cleaner alternatives.

Highlighting that the Montreal Protocol, widely regarded as one of the most successful environmental agreements ever made, was established to phase out the chemicals responsible for creating the hole in the ozone layer (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and related gases), EIA stressed that now, it could be employed to score a major win for the climate.

HFCs, said EIA, succeeded CFCs and do not destroy the ozone layer, but they are powerful greenhouse gases with global warming potentials up to thousands of times greater than CO2. Every tonne of HFC released is reportedly the equivalent of thousands of tonnes of carbon, and is estimated that by 2050, HFCs could account for as much as 19% of global greenhouse gas emissions, EIA warned.