Kerry said, “What you are doing here right now is of equal importance, because it has the ability literally to save life on this planet”.
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Speaking Friday at an worldwide conference in Vienna, Austria, focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions Kerry said that climate change is as risky as, if not more than the threat posed by violent extremism, being IS or other extremist elements. They are powerful greenhouse gases (GHGs) with global warming potential hundreds to thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) – and HFCs are the fastest growing GHG in most of the world.
“Amending the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs is one of the single most important steps the world could possibly take at this moment to stave off the worst impacts of climate change”.
Back in 1987, 60 countries signed the Montreal Protocol, a landmark agreement to phase out gases called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and aerosol cans, because they were eroding the atmospheric ozone layer that protects us against getting too much solar radiation.
For more on that, check out my story Global Deal to Cut HFCs Near ‘Finish Line, ‘ EPA Says.
India’s pitch for linking the developed and developing nations on reducing Hydroflorocarbons (HFCs) has garnered mixed response from experts with some calling it a good proposal while others describing it as a window of increasing the usage of the potent greenhouse gases.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan told The Washington Post, “The HFCs effect now is very small”.
The remark raised eyebrows among media networks, which quickly reported it under amused headlines such as “John Kerry warns your refrigerator is as risky as ISIS” and “John Kerry compares “threat of refrigerators” to ISIS”. “Already, the HFCs use in refrigerators, air conditioners, and other items are emitting an entire gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent pollution into the atmosphere annually”.
This helped protecting the ozone layer, but companies began using HFCs as an alternative to the banned chemicals.
The Montreal Protocol saved the planet from another slow-motion, human-driven disaster; the “ozone hole”.
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California announced earlier this week that it would give half a million dollars to a $6 million project to research alternatives to HFCs.
