The world wants to ensure that
the continuing rise in Earth’s average
temperatures, as a result of global warming, doesn’t go beyond 2 degrees
Celsius compared to average temperatures in pre-industrial times — that is,
around the 1850s. That, science says, is essential to prevent “catastrophic and irreversible” impacts of
climate change. A number of small island countries like Maldives, Fiji and
the Marshall Islands — and even non-island countries like Bangladesh — have,
however, been arguing for years that this is not good enough; that they face
the possibility of being submerged under rising seas even if temperature rise
is kept to 2 degrees Celsius, and the effort, therefore, should be to keep the
rise to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Accordingly, the Paris Agreement on climate change,
finalised last year, seeks to ensure that the Earth’s warming does not go beyond 2 degrees Celsius, while continuing
efforts to keep it within 1.5 degrees. Achieving this target requires
monumental global action. Every economic activity across the world — energy,
transportation, industry, agriculture, and more — is in for overhaul.
Consumption must be reduced. Efficiency needs to be improved at all levels. Major
lifestyle and behavioural changes will be needed.
And all this, and much more,
needs to happen simultaneously, over a prolonged 50-70-year period. Because any
one, or even a smaller set of interventions, will bring only minuscule
improvements.
It is in this context that the
significance of the agreement reached in Kigali
needs to be seen. More than 190 countries, after a weeklong meeting in the picturesque capital of Rwanda, decided to
phase out the use of HFCs, short for
hydrofluorocarbons, over the next 30
years. This single, relatively easy and painless intervention has the potential to prevent a rise of about 0.5 degrees
Celsius in global temperatures by the end of the century. No other
intervention comes even close in terms of returns offered, ease of
implementation, or cost impacts. The HFC
phaseout is not just the lowest hanging fruit on climate action, but also the
most rewarding.
The danger from HFCs
HFCs, ironically, had come into
use to solve another environmental problem. They came in to replace the CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, gases that
were being used extensively in the airconditioning and refrigerant industries,
and also for some other applications, in the 1970s and 1980s. CFCs were found to be primarily responsible
for a hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere, which could have dangerous
health impacts. In 1987, the world
negotiated the Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer to phase these chemicals out. The
Protocol became effective in 1989, and in the next 25 years, has succeeded in eliminating, almost
completely, the use of CFCs. The HFCs,
which were just as effective for industrial applications, replaced the CFCs all
but seamlessly.
It was realised only later that
while HFCs did not deplete the ozone
layer — which, incidentally, has been repaired considerably in the last
quarter century — these were very
powerful greenhouse gases, much more
dangerous than carbon dioxide, which is mainly blamed for global warming. A
set of 19 HFCs are used in different applications and many of them are several
hundreds or thousands of times more potent than CO2.
Despite their high global warming potential (GWP), these gases
currently account for a very small fraction of the total greenhouse gas
emissions in the world, less than 5%, mainly because they are used in very few
sectors of industry. In India, they constitute less than 1% of total
emissions. However, these happen to be the fastest
growing greenhouse gases because of the rapid growth of the airconditioning
industry, particularly in developing countries like India. It is estimated
that if this is not checked, these gases would account for 19% of global
emissions by the year 2050.
Amending Montreal Protocol
While the world was attempting,
over the past decade, to finalise a global agreement on climate change to cut
emissions of all greenhouse gases, including HFCs, it was realised that HFCs needed to be treated on a higher priority. Suggestions
to phase out HFCs through the already-successful Montreal Protocol were first
made some 7 years ago. But the Protocol,
a legally-binding agreement, was meant to deal with only ozone-depleting
substances — which HFCs were not. So, it
was proposed to amend the Montreal Protocol to enable it to phase out HFCs as
well.
A few countries, including India,
were initially not comfortable with the idea of including HFCs in the Montreal
Protocol. They argued that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and
whatever new arrangement succeeded it, should continue to deal with HFCs as all
other greenhouse gases. There was an important reason for this. The Montreal Protocol seeks the elimination of
harmful chemicals by all its member countries, though on different time
schedules. The Kyoto Protocol, on the other hand, requires only a set of
developed countries to mandatorily accept emission reduction targets.
Developing countries, if they reduced emissions, could receive ‘carbon credits’
and sell them in carbon markets to earn revenues. In fact, a few companies in
India and China did earn millions by reducing one particular HFC, called
HFC-23, which, incidentally, India decided to destroy at one go last week when
the Kigali meeting was on.
Baselines and freeze year
Once everyone agreed to use the
Montreal Protocol to phase out HFCs, it came down to negotiating the details.
Recognising the different situations in the developed and developing countries,
the Protocol has always provided for a faster and early phasedown schedule of
harmful substances for developed countries, and a slower and delayed one for
developing countries.
Both sets of countries are
assigned a ‘baseline year’ (or
three-year period), and a ‘freeze year’. The production or consumption of the
harmful substance, like HFC, in the baseline year (or the average of three-year
period) serves as the baseline amount against which reductions are assigned in
the phasedown schedule. The freeze year, which is a few years after the
baseline period, is the time from when the use of the harmful chemical must
begin to go below the average amounts used in the baseline period. The use
of the chemical can grow between the baseline year and the freeze year, but
must come down to at least baseline levels in the freeze year.
Most countries at the Kigali
meeting were agreed on a 2011-13 baseline period for developed countries and a
2020-22 baseline for developing countries. However, India and some other
countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, were arguing for a later baseline period of 2024-26
for developing countries. A delayed
baseline period would allow these countries to let their HFC use grow
unrestrained for a few more years, giving them more headroom to start making
reductions.
These countries also demanded a
2030 freeze year for developing countries. Others, mainly the United States,
wanted the freeze year to be 2027.
The deal
After some last minute haggling
in a bilateral meeting between India and the US, the final deal for amending
the Montreal Protocol was struck. India,
and its handful of supporters, agreed to advance their freeze year to 2028
while managing to get a 2024-26 baseline period. The other developing countries, including China, Brazil and South
Africa, stuck to their earlier baseline period of 2020-22, and freeze year of
2024.
For the first time in the Montreal mechanism, developing countries got
divided into two different groups with different phasedown schedules. The
amendment, which will come into force in 2019, will ensure that the developed
countries eliminate at least 85% of their HFCs from the baseline period of
2011-13 by the year 2036. The Chinese group of developing countries has the
target of eliminating 80% of their 2020-22 baseline HFC use by the year 2045,
while the Indian group will have to phase out 85% of their baseline HFCs by the
year 2047.
Early estimates show that this
amendment, though slightly weaker than imagined because of the split in
developing countries, would still be
able to achieve about 90% of the objective of preventing 0.5 degree-Celsius
temperature rise.
Credit: Indian Express Explained
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