Historic agreement to phase down HFC gases in air conditioners and refrigerators

Monday, October 17th 2016 - 19:25 UTC

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Negotiators from nearly 200 nations reached a historic deal to phase down emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — potent greenhouse gases used in air conditioners and refrigerators. The agreement, a major expansion of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which eliminated the use of the ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, was finalized during a United Nations meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. Read full article

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DennisA
“Although HFCs cause a greenhouse effect that’s thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide’s, their average atmospheric lifetime is roughly 15 years, unlike carbon dioxide, which can persist in the atmosphere for centuries.”

The effect of HFC's in the atmosphere has not and cannot be demonstrated. The claim of CO2 residence time is shown by other scientists to to be in the order of 5-15 years. Anthropogenic CO2 is well mixed, it does not sit there as some alien presence.

http://www.dw.com/en/banning-the-super-greenhouse-gas/a-36044849

”This agreement was initially understood to prevent a 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) increase in global warming by the end of the century.

Although the ban will help in the fight against climate change, uncertainty around HFCs' impacts has tempered this estimate.

“A very straightforward case would mean 0.25 or 0.3 degree of warming prevented,” said Michiel Schaeffer, science director at Climate Analytics. However, this will not count against the 2 degree limit cited in the Paris Agreement.

From 2010: Bogus HFC Offset credits

http://www.dw.com/en/banning-the-super-greenhouse-gas/a-36044849

The majority of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) offset credits issued to date are bogus, according to new research on industrial gas destruction projects.

Since its inception, the CDM has enabled power companies in industrialised countries (mainly in the European Union) to avoid reducing their emissions through the purchase of “offsets” mostly generated by producers of potent industrial gases in the global South (mostly based in China, India and South Korea).

A UN panel has now found that the largest share of these credits, which originate from projects claiming to destroy the refrigerant gas HFC-23, are bogus.

http://www.dw.com/en/banning-the-super-greenhouse-gas/a-36044849
A consortium of North American and European activists have demanded sweeping changes to the Clean Deve
Oct 19th, 2016 - 10:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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