And more lack of pace and ambition (also globally , stop adding this mess fund research into alternatives etc):
EU seeks to phase out planet-warming refrigerants
The EU’s legislation on fluorinated gases, adopted in 2014, needs an overhaul “to increase ambition in line with the European Green Deal” and “better prevent” an ongoing surge of illegal imports coming from China, an EU official told EURACTIV.
Demand for F-gases, a family of chemicals used as a refrigerant, has increased steadily since they were introduced in the early 1990s to replace the ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
But F-gases are also among the most potent greenhouse gases and are now also being phased out as a result.
Emissions of F-gases soared about 70% between 1990 and 2014, and peaked globally in 2015. They currently amount to 2.5% of total EU greenhouse gas emissions, according to the European Environment Agency.
Their impact on the earth’s climate is considerable. Fluorinated gases have a global warming potential (GWP) up to 23,000 times greater than carbon dioxide. Moreover, they can linger in the atmosphere up to 270 years in the case of HFCs, while sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs) can stay for millennia.
The culprits are well identified. F-gases are used mainly as coolants in air conditioning and in domestic, supermarket and industrial refrigeration, which altogether represent an outstanding 90% of total emissions.
Potential leakages in all these areas spring from production plants and the manipulation of pre-charged equipment.
A global affair
Worldwide, demand for HFCs is on the rise due to the mass adoption of Western lifestyles, which rely heavily on food preservation and air-conditioning in cars and buildings.
The impact of F-gases is global since they blend with other gases in the atmosphere.
The EU is thus considering a legislative revision in line with its “international obligations on hydrofluorocarbons,” an EU official told EURACTIV.
Effective in 2019, the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol – which successfully phased out the ozone-depleting CFCs – “is expected to prevent a temperature increase of 0.4 degrees Celsius by 2100 and is essential for achieving the Paris Agreement objective,” the official said.
Italy, Malta and Spain, however, are amongst the EU member states that still need to ratify the Kigali amendment. ECODES, a Spanish NGO, has called on the Spanish government to “lead the market transformation” and shift to “natural refrigerants in all public buildings by 2030”.
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The 2014 F-gas regulation, a worldwide pioneer, established a quota system for the volume of HFCs that can be placed on the EU market annually, and a timeline for progressively phasing them down.
The regulation introduced a cap to achieve a 79% reduction in F-gases by 2030 compared to 2014 levels while mandating companies to report their annual production, imports, and export activities involving HFCs.
Pre-charged equipment, where greener alternatives are widely available, and new HFC equipment will be banned by 2022 in specific sectors.
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However, the EU’s crackdown on F-gases has also had unintended consequences. The mid-2018 HFC quota, which was initially established with the intention of provoking a price hike and force a shift towards less polluting alternatives, has instead attracted smuggling networks bringing cheap HFCs from China to the EU through neighbouring countries.
The industry is particularly unhappy about the EU’s failure to implement the existing rules and demands new measures, including better monitoring systems and the empowerment of customs and surveillance authorities.
“Enforcement is left to member states and they have not been provided with the appropriate tools, where countries like Italy have not enacted the legislation until last year,” said Sameer Bharadwaj, president of Koura, a manufacturer of HFCs.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/eu-seeks-to-wipe-out-planet-warming-refrigerants/