IPCC/TEAP Special Report

The Summary for Policy Makers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)/ Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) Special Report "Safeguarding the ozone layer and the global climate system: issues related to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs)" was released on the IPCC Web site on April 11, 2005 (www.ipcc.ch). The Special Report "was developed in response to invitations by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer to prepare a balanced scientific, technical and policy relevant report regarding alternatives to ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) that affect the global climate system". It will be published in mid-2005. The IIR participated in the reviewing of this Special Report. Among the information contained in the 18-page Summary for Policy Makers, the following are noteworthy: - Options chosen to protect the ozone layer could influence climate change. Climate change may also indirectly influence the ozone layer. The warming effect due to ODSs and the cooling effect associated with ozone depletion are two distinct climate forcing mechanisms that do not simply offset one another. - Based on the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario developed in the report, the estimated radiative forcing of HFCs in 2015 is about 0.030 W/m2; it corresponds to about 1.0% of the estimated radiative forcing of all well-mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs) in 2015, with the contribution of ODSs being about 10%. - In the BAU scenario, direct emissions of CFCs and HCFCs are together decreasing from 2.1 (2002) to 1.2 GtCO 2-eq/yr (2015) and emissions of HFCs are increasing from 0.4 (2002) to 1.2 GtCO 2-eq/yr (2015). The projected threefold increase in HFC emissions is the result of increased application of HFCs in the refrigeration, stationary air-conditioning and mobile air-conditioning sectors, and due to by-product emissions of HFC-23 from increased HCFC-22 production. Through application of current best practices and recovery methods, there is a potential to halve (1.2 GtCO 2-eq/yr reduction) the BAU direct emissions from ODSs and their GHG substitutes by 2015. About 60% of this potential concerns HFC emissions, 30% HCFCs and 10% CFCs. The greatest sectoral emission reduction potentials concern: commercial refrigeration (34%), HFC-23 by-product (25%), stationary air-conditioning (17%), mobile air-conditioning (15%). This summary also stresses the significant contribution (now and in the coming decades) to current emissions of ODSs from the banks of CFCs and HCFCs. In 2002, CFC, HCFC and HFC banks were about 16, 4 and 1 GtCO 2-eq/yr (direct GWP weighted). In 2015, the banks are about 8, 5 and 5 GtCO 2-eq/yr, respectively, in the BAU scenario. It also stresses the possibility of significant reductions in GHG indirect emissions related to energy consumption but does not provide estimates of this reduction potential.