PHASING OUT HFCs Nearly 200 nations agree binding deal to cut greenhouse gases
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered his keynote address to promote U.S. climate and environmental goals, at the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on the elimination of hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs) use, held in Rwanda's capital Kigali, October 14, 2016-Reuters news. In Kigali, Rwanda, negotiators from more than 170 countries gathered this week to complete an accord that would phase out the use of heat-trapping hydro-fluoro-carbons, or HFCs, worldwide and with them the cheapest air-conditioners that are just coming within reach of middle class/lower middle class people, especially in India. Between 6 and 9 percent of Indian households use air-conditioning that use the heat trapping HFCs to supply the cooling. HFCs <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/opinion/a-coolant-that-threatens-to-heat-up-the-climate.html> function as a sort of super-greenhouse gas <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/opinion/a-coolant-that-threatens-to-heat-up-the-climate.html>, with 1,000 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide. The cost to India of phasing out HFCs by 2050 could range, depending on the mitigation plan, from around $13 billion to $38 billion, according to a study by the India-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water <http://ceew.in/publication_detail.php?id=300>. At this week’s talks, developed countries led by the United States have proposed to require developing countries to freeze HFC production and use by 2021, phasing down to about 15 percent of 2012 levels by 2046. A fast phase-out comes with big wins for the United States, since many of the replacement chemicals are manufactured by American chemical companies like Dow and Honeywell. But those manufacturers concede that their products are more expensive than HFCs. So this is a win win situation for the USA. It is not known what is the function of the Energy and Resources Institute <http://www.teriin.org/> in New Delhi other than seat warming by the ‘director general’ and his cronies. Why India will not be able to produce the ‘replacement chemicals’ so as not to depend on supplies from Dow Chemicals and Honeywell corp. of USA that will cost around between $13 billion to $38 billion? Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-climatechange-deal-idUSKBN12F02T
