This document is the updated edition of the Recommendations for Climate Friendly Refrigerant Management and Procurement authored by the SPLC Climate Friendly Refrigerant Action Team. The Climate Friendly Refrigerant Action Team is dedicated to investigating global regulatory and voluntary programs to avoid and/or reduce emissions from high global warming potential (GWP) HFCs. This document identifies opportunities and specific procurement options 1) to avoid high GWP HFC refrigerants when purchasing new energy efficient refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, and 2) to reduce refrigerant leakage and service emissions. We invite you to read and put this work to use in your own procurement processes, and to offer additional insights and experiences to sharpen and improve the guidance over time.
The Global Methane Assessment shows that human-caused methane emissions can be reduced by up to 45 per cent this decade. Such reductions would avoid nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045 and would be consistent with keeping the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5˚C) within reach.
The assessment, for the first time, integrates the climate and air pollution costs and benefits from methane mitigation. Because methane is a key ingredient in the formation of ground-level ozone (smog), a powerful climate forcer and dangerous air pollutant, a 45 per cent reduction would prevent 260 000 premature deaths, 775 000 asthma-related hospital visits, 73 billion hours of lost labour from extreme heat, and 25 million tonnes of crop losses annually.
In 2019, the Government of Morocco with industry and non-governmental partners organized the Morocco Banker’s Air Conditioner Buyers Club with an ambition to gain access at a competitive and affordable cost to room air conditioners (RACs) with high-efficiency and low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants as mandated globally by the Montreal Protocol. In 2020 the Government of Morocco and the Morocco Banker’s AC Buyers Club have decided to replace older RACs with next-generation technology using more climate-friendly refrigerants. This report provides the indicative finding that the RAC replacement program planned by the Government of Morocco and partners will reduce power consumption by up to 70% with additional economic and climate benefits from the recovery and destruction in local cement kilns of obsolete HCFC and HFC GHG refrigerants.
As the world warms, the growing use of air conditioners (“ACs”) and other cooling equipment becomes essential for human comfort and public health. In addition, cooling-equipment energy and refrigerant consumption also presents tremendous climate mitigation opportunities. This article highlights China’s “Same Line, Same Standard and Same Quality” policy (“Same-Line Policy” or “Policy”), intended to support economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and address the export challenges that have negatively affected Chinese industries and products on the global market. The Policy encourages manufacturers of consumer and industrial products to sell products within China that were produced for markets outside China according to standards exceeding those for products produced for the Chinese market. The Policy, and the associated information and business platforms that the government established to ensure policy success, aim to improve the domestic economic situation through consumption of products previously destined for export markets but which are not being sold because of the economic downturn during the pandemic. Policies like these, representing a course of action that China’s leadership endorses, can drive changes in Chinese law, including changes that address loopholes in the law that allow environmentally harmful activities to continue. The Same-Line Policy provides an opportunity for global climate mitigation, public health, and other benefits that should not be missed.
This paper explains how investing in energy efficiency increases net employment, including as a result of the money saved by energy efficiency improvements being spent locally in support of household and community development. This higher efficiency also allows a sustained improvement in the quality of life with cleaner air, better health, less damage from climate change, and less spent on health care and recovery from climate disasters. Low income and otherwise disadvantaged communities in areas despoiled by fossil fuel extraction and combustion for energy and industry all benefit from clean renewable energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal) and more affordable appliance operating costs.
This paper presents a pioneering benefit assessment framework and indicative quantification of the community and national benefits of operating cost savings from super-efficient room air conditioning (RAC) that are spent locally and not for imported fuel, electricity, and power plants. It also estimates the benefits of expanded employment to replace and service the new RACs and to recover and destroy obsolete and contaminated ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas (GHG) refrigerants. Shifting spending from foreign to local purchase improves balance of trade, strengthens domestic currency, and creates jobs and prosperity as funds circulate in the local economy. Added to that are the community benefits of mass replacement of RACs and their service to maintain energy efficiency over the life of the appliance. This community impact grows over time as savings accumulate on avoided fuel and energy infrastructure and as the income from the new jobs circulates in the local economy.
The International Energy Agency expects the global stock of room air conditioners (RACs) to triple between today and 2050, with critical implications for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Because China produces approximately 70% of the world’s RACs, it is in a unique position to lead a global transition to higher-efficiency RACs with substantially lower environmental impact. To date, however, Chinese policies have targeted relatively modest RAC efficiency increases. We recommend that China target production of RACs that use low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants and are at least as efficient as the most efficient RACs produced today in China or on the global market. Specifically, we recommend that China set minimum energy performance standards for RACs at China annual performance factor (APF) 5.4 in 2025 and China APF 6.9 in 2030. This leadership would provide a longer-term policy signal to RAC manufacturers in China, enabling them to meet the efficiency targets cost-effectively by providing adequate time for investment planning. We project that full implementation of our recommended policy could result in global electricity consumption savings of 74 petawatt-hours, CO2 reductions of 49 billion metric tons, and bill savings of 6 trillion U.S. dollars (cumulative benefits 2020–2050). The policy is viable in China because of its provision of long-term certainty for manufacturers and their demonstrated ability to produce low-GWP RACs with the required efficiencies. Exploiting the parallel transition away from high-GWP refrigerants under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol would provide manufacturing efficiencies and substantial savings opportunities.
The demand for air conditioners that provide thermal comfort is steadily growing across the African continent as consumers seek to improve their quality of life in the face of urbanization and rising global temperatures. Since 2016, Africa’s market for new split room air conditioners has grown by approximately 5%, annually. As manufacturing and industrialized economies place increasingly stringent standards on room ACs sold domestically, while allowing continued export of technology that cannot legally be sold in the country of export as a consequence of failure to meet environmental, safety, energy efficiency, or other product standards, importing countries risk becoming dumping grounds for inefficient, environmentally harmful products using obsolete refrigerants. Weak or non-existent energy performance standards and the lack of proactive anti-environmental dumping policies in many African countries have facilitated environmentally harmful dumping of inefficient, high-global warming potential cooling products into African markets.
This report details the extent of the problem across ten countries in North, West, East, and Southern Africa, ultimately providing policymakers with a set of solutions to encourage a transition toward highly-efficient, sustainable cooling technologies.
By combining energy efficiency improvements with the transition away from super-polluting refrigerants, the world could avoid cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of up to 210-460 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) over the next four decades, depending on future rates of decarbonisation. This is roughly equal to 4-8 years of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions, based on 2018 levels.
There are many policy options and approaches to seize these benefits explored here.
This paper explains how Moroccan government authorities are cooperating with international organizations in finding the way forward with a combination of more stringent Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS), private and public AC Buyers Clubs, and economic incentives such as import duties that favour efficiency and caps the global warming potential (GWP) of refrigerants used in imported room ACs. The Morocco AC Buyers Club will use comprehensive calculations of the carbon footprint and economic impact of room ACs tailored to local Moroccan climate and use conditions.
