As the 36th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol approaches, it is important to take time to reflect on the tremendous effectiveness of this treaty in phasing out earlier generations of refrigerants and creating markets for new generations of refrigerants with superior environmental attributes. The Protocol’s Kigali Amendment is fundamental to the deployment of climate-friendly cooling, including Exergyn’s solid state zero GWP refrigerant technology.
President at Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development and Law Practice Consultant
The evolution of the #MontrealProtocol into an explicit climate treaty started in 2007, when the Parties agreed to accelerate the phaseout of ozone-depleting refrigerants called hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) explicitly because they also caused warming. Then, in 2016, they agreed to phase down hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants through the #KigaliAmendment. This will avoid up to 0.5 C of future warming. If air conditioners are made more efficient while switching refrigerants– a strategy the Protocol’s multilateral fund has just agreed to support with $100 million for developing country Parties– the climate benefits will be twice as much. It all adds up to an extraordinary accomplishment that we need to celebrate! We also need to use the Protocol as a model for tackling other parts of the climate emergency, starting with the other short-lived climate super pollutants – #methane, ground-level ozone, and black carbon soot, along with the longer-lived nitrous oxide. #WorldOzoneDay Maxime Beaugrand Margetson Vienna Convention & Montreal Protocol (Ozone) Secretariat