HFC news

- A joint North American proposal from the United States, Canada and Mexico, supplementing the Mauritius and Micronesia proposal (see Newsletter of the IIR No. 39), will be considered as an amendment to the Montreal Protocol during the next UN meeting of the Parties in Port Ghalib, Egypt, in November 2009. The key elements of this proposal are: . specification of 20 HFCs as a new Annex F to the Protocol; . phase-down - rather than phase-out - of production and consumption: Parties to the Protocol will be required to achieve a final phase-down plateau of production and consumption of 15% of the baseline by 2033 for developed countries and by 2043 for developing countries. The phase-down will start in 2013 in developed countries and 2016 in developing countries, while the baseline will be calculated as the average of 2004-2006 annual production and consumption of HCFCs and HFCs. This proposal would leave unchanged the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol that currently governs HFCs. http://ozone.unep.org/Mee...mission%20Summary.doc - The Swedish Ministry of Finance has published a proposal on introducing a tax on HFCs which is expected to decrease emissions by around 0.1 million tonnes of CO2e by 2020. The tax rates would be based on each respective HFC compound's GWP; in concrete, this would translate into a tax of 287 Krona (about 28 €) per kg in the case of R-134a. The total emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases ("F-gases") have increased from about 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents in 1990 to around 1.2 million tonnes in 2007 and are expected to decrease to around 0.4 million tonnes in 2020 without a tax (mainly due to the EU "F-gases" Directive. The proposed tax is complemented by a premium to be paid when HFCs are delivered for destruction. This proposal - based on an evaluation of the existing Danish and Norwegian taxes on F-gases - is expected to enter into force on July 1, 2010. www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/12/89/80/c7d0b072.pdf - A motion for introducing the "Hydrocarbons Limitation Bill 2008-09" was presented this summer in the UK House of Commons by Labour MP C. Efford. The Bill seeks to make provisions for limiting the use of HFCs in certain premises. More specifically, it will end the use of HFCs in the refrigeration units of large supermarkets. Efford argues that the phasing out of HFC use in supermarkets by 2015 has the potential to save 175 million CO2e by 2050, which is more than one quarter of the UK's current annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Bill still must pass several stages in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords to become an Act.