Europe: the proposal to review the F-Gas Regulation has been published, and the proposal to ban PFAS has been delayed.

F-Gas regulation 

 

We mentioned last month the imminent publication of the proposal relating to the review of the European Union F-Gas Regulation. 

The proposal was released by the European Commission on April 5^th. The text is available following this link. This proposal will now be discussed by the co-legislators of the European Parliament and of the Council. The process is expected to take approximately 18 months. This proposal includes accelerating the phase-down of HFCs from 2024, with a reduction target of 2.4% of 2015 levels by 2048. 
 
Certain exemptions that currently exist in Europe and that are not provided for in the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol would be abolished. 
 
The proposed regulation would also, as of January 1, 2027, ban split air-conditioning and heat pump equipment with a capacity of more than 12kW (3.4TR) that use f-gases with a GWP of 750 or greater. This ban would include industrial systems. 
 
Along with the proposed regulation on fluorinated gases, the EC has also published a proposal to update the Regulation 1005/2009 on ozone-depleting substances (ODS). 
 
According to the European Commission, the proposed F-Gas Regulation could save the equivalent of 40 million tonnes of CO2e emissions by 2030 beyond the reduction provided by current legislation, reaching total additional savings equivalent to 310 million tonnes of CO2e by 2050. This would reduce the potential climate impact of new HFCs entering the EU market by 98% between 2015 and 2050, declared the European Commission. The previous version of the regulation led to an 80% reduction over the same period. 
 
The EC said the proposal would also make it easier for customs and surveillance authorities to control imports and exports, cracking down on the trade in fluorinated gases and illegal equipment. Penalties will also become "tougher and more standardized". 

 

PFAS ban 

 

Last summer, 5 European Union countries announced their intention to submit a joint proposal to restrict Per – and Polyfluoroalkyls (PFAS) to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) under the REACH regulation by July 2022. These five countries are Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We discussed this subject in September (insert link). Several refrigerants are identified as PFAS (including R32, R134a, R125, R143a and R152a among HFCs, and R1234yf, R1234ze(E) and R1233zd(E) among HFOs). 
 
A text about this ban was supposed to be published in July 2022, but due to questions raised, among other things, following the use of these refrigerants, its publication has been postponed to January 2023. 

 

Sources:

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/fluorinated-greenhouse-gases/eu-legislation-control-f-gases_en  

https://r744.com/eu-releases-proposed-f-gas-regulation-opening-doors-for-r744/  

https://iifiir.org/fr/actualites/dernieres-actualites-sur-la-reglementation-en-europe  

https://iifiir.org/en/news/latest-news-about-regulation-in-europe  

https://iifiir.org/en/news/update-on-the-global-regulation-on-refrigerants