{"id":571051,"date":"2010-05-19T17:26:49","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T21:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.climatechangeinsights.com\/2010\/05\/articles\/us-policy\/achieving-fast-mitigation-kerrylieberman-and-unsnaping-a-mobile-refrigerant\/"},"modified":"2010-05-19T17:26:49","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T21:26:49","slug":"achieving-fast-mitigation-kerry-lieberman-and-unsnaping-a-mobile-refrigerant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/571051","title":{"rendered":"Achieving Fast Mitigation: Kerry-Lieberman and UnSNAPing a Mobile Refrigerant"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s easy to overlook crucial provisions of the Senate climate bill that address strategies to reduce non-<\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span> 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 <\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span> 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Why is this called Fast Mitigation? The non-<\/span>CO2 <\/sub><\/span>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 <\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span> of course are essential but will not produce cooling for centuries. <\/span><\/p>\n

We addressed controls over HFC greenhouse gases with hundreds to thousands the global warming potential of <\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span> 19 months ago here<\/a>.  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 <\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span>-equivalent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Studies show that technology is already available to address the non-CO2<\/sub> pollutants<\/a> and gases<\/a>.  Expanding biochar<\/a> 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<\/a> comes in. <\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/span>CO2<\/sub><\/span>, while replacements such as soon-to-be approved HFC 1234yf (GWP: 4), already-approved HFC-152a (GWP of ~140), hydrocarbons (GWP: 5), and CO2<\/sub> (GWP: 1) have comparatively tiny GWPs. <\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/sub>-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.”<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-571051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}