Author: Frederick R. Anderson

It’s easy to overlook crucial provisions of the Senate climate bill that address strategies to reduce non-CO₂ climate-forcing that accounts for almost half of the warming effect our activities cause.  In the brouhaha the bill caused, it was also easy to overlook the significance of a petition from NGOs to EPA asking it to end the privileged status of the most widely used mobile air conditioning refrigerant, which has a global warming potential (GWP) up at 1,400.  Yet these two closely-related actions, despite having nothing to do with CO₂ emissions from the power plants targeted by the Senate bill, may well provide the most significant climate protections the US achieves in the near term.

The Senate climate bill unveiled on May 12^th by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman contains a section titled “Achieving Fast Mitigation” to address non-CO₂ climate forcers, including black carbon soot, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).  When combined with other similar sources like ground-level ozone, these non-CO₂ greenhouse gases and pollutants make up 40 to 50 percent of total climate forcing.

Why is this called Fast Mitigation? The non-CO₂ forcers are short-lived in the atmosphere — a few days to about fifteen years — meaning reductions will produce benefits fast and help to avoid the tipping points for abrupt climate change.  Reductions in CO₂ of course are essential but will not produce cooling for centuries.

We addressed controls over HFC greenhouse gases with hundreds to thousands the global warming potential of CO₂ 19 months ago here.  Both the Senate bill and the House’s Waxman-Markey bill now address HFCs and thus complement the proposal by the US, Canada, and Mexico under the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty which, if the Parties reach agreement in November, would result in avoided emissions of at least 100 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent.

Studies show that technology is already available to address the non-CO₂ pollutants and gases.  Expanding biochar production is one such strategy but the hugest GWP reductions can be made in HFC refrigeration and air conditioning applications.  That’s where the NGO petition on HFC 134a comes in.

The NRDC, joined by the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) and the Environmental Investigation Agency, filed the petition to withdraw EPA approval for use of HFC-134a in mobile air conditioning installed in new cars.  HFC-134a has a GWP 1,400 times greater than CO₂, while replacements such as soon-to-be approved HFC 1234yf (GWP: 4), already-approved HFC-152a (GWP of ~140), hydrocarbons (GWP: 5), and CO₂ (GWP: 1) have comparatively tiny GWPs. 

Durwood Zaelke of the IGSD, one of the groups filing the petition, says that “reducing all HFCs can produce a planet-saving 100 billion tonnes or more of CO₂-equivalent in climate mitigation.  We can get 30 percent of this by outlawing high GWP HFCs in mobile air conditioning, as the European Union is already doing, starting with new models in 2011.  And we can do it fast—easily in seven years for new cars as required in Europe, or in as little as three years if automakers get serious about improving their cars.”

The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) says that it has received pledges from 55 countries to limit and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.  For companies, particularly large multi-nationals with facilities around the world, the pledges are a useful indication of the first or additional requirements the companies will have to meet.

The Copenhagen Accord called for countries to submit their emissions targets to the UNFCCC by the end of January.  Fifty-five of the almost 200 countries in attendance in Copenhagen may not sound like much.  But they represent 78 percent of all global emissions from energy use.  Among industrialized countries, the commitments come from Australia, Canada, Croatia, the European Union and its member states, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States.  Commitments also came from almost two dozen developing nations, including the all-important "BASIC" group (Brazil, South Africa, India, China, and the Republic of Korea).

Many commitments, particularly those of developed countries, hinge on similar commitments being made by other countries.  They also use varying base years to establish their targets.  Consistent with President Obama’s promise at Copenhagen, the United States committed to reduce emissions "in the range of" 17 percent below 2005 levels, "in conformity with anticipated US energy and climate legislation, recognizing that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation."  The Secretariat noted that the next round of formal negotiations is scheduled for Bonn at the end of May, although several countries have indicated their wish to see a quick return to the negotiations with more meetings than the scheduled sessions.  Here are the pledges from industrialized countries and here from developing countries.