In a virtual summit with President Macron of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China will accept the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. President Xi also mentioned China’s intention to strengthen the control of non-CO2 greenhouse gases.
Curbing CO2 emissions gets most of the attention and getting to net zero emissions by midcentury is essential in the long run to abate climate change. But that’s not enough. To bend the warming curve, we must drastically reduce the less appreciated short-lived “super-pollutants”.
President Biden directed the State Dept. to prepare a transmittal package to the Senate for the ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase down potent HFCs. “President Biden knows the Senate better than any president before him, and will be using the advice and consent process to build bipartisan support for this and future climate action, which the American people are demanding,” said IGSD President, Durwood Zaelke.
In a huge win for the environment and American businesses, the Consolidated Appropriations Act that was signed into law on 27 December 2020 phases down potent greenhouse gases HFCs. Reducing HFC refrigerants could avoid up to 0.5°C of future warming. Climate benefits could double with parallel improvements in energy efficiency of cooling equipment.
Much of the world is awash in unsustainable public and private debt, made significantly worse by the COVID-19 crisis. Efforts to relieve the debt crisis provide opportunities to advance climate protection, health, and economic goals together, specifically through debt-for-climate swaps, building on the success of debt-for-nature swaps.
Coordinated international action on energy-efficient, climate-friendly cooling could avoid as much as 460 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – roughly equal to eight years of global emissions at 2018 levels – over the next four decades.
Warming caused by one of the six main greenhouse gases will be taken out of the climate system through the Kigali Amendment agreed in the early morning hours today in Rwanda. The amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase out HFCs is the largest temperature reduction ever achieved by a single agreement.
