The global phasedown of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol will make a crucial contribution to slowing climate change and meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. An even faster phasedown could be achieved with a more extensive replacement of high-GWP HFCs with commercially available low-GWP alternatives in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. Climate emissions also can be reduced by collecting HFCs at the end of the useful life of cooling equipment and either recycling or destroying them. Such strategies could avoid up to 0.5°C of warming by 2100.
This report is a comprehensive assessment of the climate and development benefits of efficient and climate-friendly cooling.
Chapter 25 in Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health (Al-Delaimy, W. K., Ramanathan, & V., Sorondo, M. S. eds). Springer, Cham. Pages 321-331.
Climate change is becoming an existential threat with warming in excess of 2 °C within the next three decades and 4–6 °C within the next several decades. Warming of such magnitudes will expose as many as 75% of the world’s population to deadly heat stress in addition to disrupting the climate and weather worldwide. Climate change is an urgent problem requiring urgent solutions. This chapter lays out urgent and practical solutions that are ready for implementation now, will deliver benefits in the next few critical decades, and place the world on a path to achieving the long-term targets of the Paris Agreement. The approach consists of four building blocks and three levers to implement ten scalable solutions described in this chapter. These solutions will enable society to decarbonize the global energy system by 2050 through efficiency and renewables, drastically reduce short-lived climate pollutants, and stabilize the warming well below 2 °C both in the near term (before 2050) and in the long term (after 2050). The solutions include an atmospheric carbon extraction lever to remove CO2 from the air. The amount of CO2 that must be removed ranges from negligible (if the emissions of CO2 from the energy system and short-lived climate pollutants have started to decrease by 2020 and carbon neutrality is achieved by 2050) to a staggering one trillion tons (if the carbon lever is not pulled and emissions of climate pollutants continue to increase until 2030).
This report quantifies the GHG benefits of implementing aggressive but economic energy efficiency measures (about 30% more efficient than current technology) in air- conditioning (AC) and large commercial refrigeration equipment (CRE) together with low-GWP refrigerants. Shifting the 2030 world stock of room ACs and CRE from current levels of energy- efficiency and high-GWP refrigerants to “economic” energy efficiency levels and low-GWP refrigerants by 2050 would avoid up to 240.1 GT CO2e and shifting to “best-available technology” energy efficiency levels and low GWP refrigerants by 2050 would avoid up to 373 GT CO2e with existing electricity grid emission factors. About two-thirds of this cumulative savings are from reduced electricity sector emissions from improved energy efficiency. Thus, it is highly beneficial to pursue high energy efficiency in concert with the transition to lower GWP refrigerants to achieve maximal GHG reductions with the least amount of equipment re-design and replacement.
Mobile air conditioning (MAC) systems are a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vehicles. This study, conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation in partnership with IGSD, examines the GHG benefits and costs of switching to improved refrigerants and more efficient AC systems. This research is intended to support implementation of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which requires the phase-down of HFC refrigerants and also targets improvements in energy efficiency.
The new report is a set of maps and graphics, accompanied by short narratives to synthesize and illustrate the most critical, connected environmental challenges with Arctic and global relevance and focusing on issues which call for common solutions. The graphics builds on Arctic and global environmental assessments and reflect the dynamic connection between the Arctic and the rest of the planet. It presents both trends and outlooks and provides actionable recommendations focused on policy development and options for solutions. The issues covered by this product reflect the themes of the current Finnish Chairmanship of the Arctic Council – climate change, biodiversity conservation and pollution prevention.
In a warming world cooling will be increasingly important for people’s health and productivity, and for achievement of many of the SDGs. However, growing demand for cooling will, if current approaches are continued, contribute significantly to further global warming, both from the emissions of HFCs and other refrigerants, and from the CO2 and black carbon emissions from the mostly fossil fuel-based energy currently powering ACs and other cooling equipment. If robust policies are implemented quickly to promote the use of best available technologies in the cooling sector, the associated emission reductions will make significant contribution to meeting Paris Agreement goals. A combined strategy to improve energy efficiency of cooling equipment while phasing down HFC refrigerants under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol presents one of the biggest mitigation opportunities available today.
Chapter 15: Technologies for Super Pollutant Mitigation
The chapter explore a complementary climate solution to CO2 reductions: reducing a key group of warming agents knows as super pollutants or short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) to bend the warming curve quickly (over a few decades) while we pursue CO2 mitigation to bend the curve in the long term (over several decades to centuries). Combined, these efforts, if enacted by 2020, give us a significant chance (about 90% probability) of keeping warming well below 2°C (aiming for 1.5°C) in this century and beyond. Mitigation of SLCPs, if completed by 2030, can bend the warming curve by up to 0.6°C by 2050 (about 0.4°C from methane mitigation, 0.1°C from black carbon, and 0.1°C from HFCs), cutting the rate of projected warming by about half compared with “business as usual” and reducing the projected sea level rise between 2020 and 2050 by 20%.
The Montreal Protocol has halted 99% of global production of chemical substances that deplete stratospheric ozone, which protects life on earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet (UVB) radiation. UVB causes skin cancer and cataracts, suppresses the human immune system, destroys plastics, and damages agricultural crops and natural ecosystems. Because ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) are powerful greenhouse gases, the Montreal Protocol also protects climate. From the authors’ perspectives in multiple roles as environmental entrepreneurs, practitioners, and authorities, this paper explains how individuals, companies, and military organizations researched, developed, commercialized and implemented alternatives to ODSs that are also safer for climate. With the benefit of hindsight, the authors reflect on what was neglected or done badly under the Montreal Protocol and present lessons learned on how Montreal Protocol institutions can be renewed and revitalized to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
The comprehensive carbon metric accounts for the fact that AC electricity use and the integrated carbon intensity of that electricity can be up to 48% higher than estimated using national “average” assumptions. Taking real-world operating conditions and the actual carbon intensity of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution at the end-use into consideration provides for a more accurate assessment of the significant climate and economic benefits from energy efficiency and power grid investment.
This article was published in ASHRAE Journal, November 2018. Copyright 2018 ASHRAE. Posted at www.ashrae.org.
Environmental dumping is a practice historically associated with the export of hazardous product waste from a developed country for irresponsible and often illegal disposal in a developing country. Now, with the industrialization and globalization of China and other developing countries, environmental dumping can involve both developing and developed countries as origin and destination. This dumping can be especially harmful to attempts to control under the Montreal Protocol ozone-depleting and climate-forcing chemical substances and/or products requiring unnecessarily high energy consumption. While developing country Parties to the Montreal Protocol are allowed to delay their phasedown of climate-forcing and ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) during a multi-year grace period, there are advantages to earlier implementation when superior alternatives are already available at reasonable costs, as is the case for many uses of HFCs today. Thus, developing countries can benefit under the Protocol from setting controls for environmental dumping. This article aims to give policymakers, especially those in developing countries, a legal and policy “toolkit” that can be used to stop unwanted environmental dumping. It includes an examination of the history of environmental dumping, illustration of such dumping in practice, a detailed explanation and examination of the legal and policy tools, and a summary of the consequences of environmental dumping.
