No mandate for the ozone treaty to regulate HFCs
[ added 10 November, 2009 ]
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The historic goodwill of the Montreal Protocol to regulate swiftly and smoothly potent global warming gases in addition to ozone depleters was left unexploited by the Parties at their annual meeting in Egypt last week. The veto was brought up by developing countries, which opposed an amendment to regulate hydrofluorocarbons under the Protocol as suggested by a coalition of developed countries. In the meantime, TEAP has been requested to scrutinise the availability of alternative refrigerants.
National representatives to the 21st Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol were asked to consider an extension of the scope of the ozone treaty in order to control and limit the production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) with a high global warming potential. The proposal was presented during the annual meeting of the Parties hosted in Egypt from 4-8 November. It came from a group of developed countries, which felt that the Montreal patterns for banning substances that pose a risk to the ozone layer were also appropriate in the fight against global warming. The initiators of the amendment fear that climate change may be too large to be addressed solely through the United Nations’ Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) as it is the case today and that other legal instruments should contribute in achieving climate mitigation. The UNFCCC has put in place a system to control greenhouse gases emissions but leaves the production of such substances uncontrolled. To date, the ozone treaty is widely recognised as a successful tool to ban ozone depleting substances (ODS) thanks to an agreed accelerated phase out schedule for both developed and developing countries. The ozone delegates seek to apply the same regime to high global warming potential substances whose production is not subject to restrictions for the time being.
Hence why the Montreal Protocol should be amended to recognizs its capacity to regulate a field that is partly covered by the UNFCCC.
To do so, the ozone delegates had to reach consensus in order to move forward and consider the proposed amendment in detail. Delegates engaged however in a protracted debate on whether HFCs fall within the ambit of Montreal Protocol or reside solely in the UNFCCC domain.
A number of developing countries maintained the position not to pre-judge the Copenhagen discussions in December by considering hydrofluorocarbons at the meeting of the Parties in Egypt.
In the end, developed countries decided not push for an amendment of the Montreal Protocol to implement the phase out of hydrofluorocarbons at the Egypt meeting.
An extraordinary meeting of the Parties next year could further explore the possibility to amend the Montreal Protocol. In the meantime, Parties requested that the Technical Advisory Panel (“TEAP”) prepares a report before the extraordinary meeting addressing issues raised by various parties including the climate benefits to be achieved by the HFC phase-out, the related costs and the availability of alternatives.
BeyondHFCs regrets the failure of the Egypt talks to launch a process whereby HFCs would face greater restrictions in an effort to achieve climate mitigation. The signal is all the more negative when the Copenhagen climate deal in December is also unlikely. And while climate leaders make no progress in this field, the earth’s average temperature is raising, developing countries do not realise their potential to leapfrog unsustainable gases when diverting from ODS towards climate-friendly technologies and businesses are left counting the cost of unsustainable investments in high global warming substances.
