Press Releases

Tonight Parties to the Montreal Protocol agreed to launch formal negotiations to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) under the Montreal Protocol. After two days of discussions, Parties agreed on the path forward for the formal negotiations to phase down these super greenhouse gases, now growing at a rate to 10 to 15 percent per year.

A new paper from the New Climate Economy recommends that Parties to the Montreal Protocol approve an amendment to phase down Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a fast mitigation action that could avoid the equivalent of up to 200 billion tones of carbon dioxide by 2050, and up to 0.5C of warming by the end of the century. By 2030, the HFC amendment could avoid 1.7 Gt CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per year, more than the current annual emissions of Japan.

Today the White House, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), and dozens of private companies launched the end game for hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) greenhouse gases both domestically through the federal procurement and the Clean Air Act, and globally, through the Montreal Protocol. The HFC cuts were announced at a White House roundtable

In the continuing battle to phase down the super-greenhouse gasses known as HFCs, today environmental groups demanded that the EPA withdraw approval for these chemicals in all application where lower global warming potential (GWP) alternatives are now available. The petition, submitted by IGSD and NRDC, was filed with EPA under the Clean Air Act’s Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP).

Following Governor Jerry Brown’s announcement last week, today the California Air Resources Board released the details of its ambitious new strategy to reduce short-lived climate pollutants.

Governor Brown stated this afternoon that California will announce an aggressive plan next week to cut methane and HFCs by 40 percent and black carbon by 50 percent in the next fifteen years. This bold action was revealed today at

The White House announced today federal regulations to reduce 2025 methane emissions from oil and gas production by 40 to 45% from 2012 levels. Methane is a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) and has the potential to quickly slow near-term climate impacts by reducing the immediate damages of climate change, including sea-level rise and extreme weather conditions.

As midnight approached, the Parties to the Montreal Protocol took the unusual step of suspending, rather than adjourning, their Working Group meeting, to ensure they would be able to finalize terms for negotiating the final agreement to phasedown the refrigerants known as HFCs, before treaty’s annual meeting in Dubai 1 to 5 November.