New carbon market rules for destroying ozone-depleting
chemicals open the door for major climate benefits
Washington, DC, February 8, 2010 - Billions of
tons of ozone-destroying and climate-warming chemicals currently
contained in unwanted stockpiles and discarded equipment will leak
into the atmosphere if not recovered and destroyed. But new rules
on ozone-depleting substance destruction adopted by a carbon market
offset registry, the Climate Action Reserve, could jumpstart new
projects in both the U.S. and developing countries to destroy these
chemicals and significantly contribute to the protection of the
ozone layer and climate system.
"The Montreal Protocol's technical experts estimate that
recovery and destruction of these substances could result in
climate mitigation of up to 6 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by
2015," said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for
Governance & Sustainable Development.
"If we allow these chemicals to leak into the atmosphere they
will do serious damage to both the ozone layer and climate system:
bringing ODS destruction projects into carbon markets is one way to
help solve this problem."
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer
is already phasing out the production of many of these
ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), and in the case of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a global phase-out was reached at the
end of 2009. However, because the ozone treaty deals with
production and consumption, rather than emissions of ODSs, there is
a regulation gap for these "banks" of environmentally-destructive
chemicals. Many ODSs, like CFCs and hydrochlorofluorocarbons
(HCFCs), have thousands of times the warming potential of CO2.
With the world increasingly focused on preventing climate
change, the climate mitigation potential of the Montreal Protocol
has received significant attention in recent years. In 2008 and
2009, island nations Micronesia and Mauritius submitted proposals
calling for financing under the Montreal Protocol to initiate ODS
bank destruction pilot projects in developing countries.
Although the Parties agreed to start the process of recovering
and destroying banks, the efforts need to be expanded in order to
maximize the ozone and climate benefits. Carbon markets are another
potentially significant source of financing to prevent the emission
of these powerful greenhouse gases. While recovering and destroying
ODSs in banks is comparable to previous ozone protection measures,
when compared to most other climate mitigation measures, preventing
these emissions is extremely cost effective.
"The window of opportunity is small - the longer we
wait, the more we're contributing to climate change and undoing the
progress we've made on healing the ozone layer." Durwood
Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable
Development.
In addition to going after banks of ozone-depleting substances,
the Montreal Protocol has another major opportunity to contribute
to climate mitigation: phasing down production and consumption of
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of ozone-friendly, super
greenhouse gases that are in line to replace the ozone-depleting
CFCs and HCFCs.
A phase-down under the Montreal Protocol could lead to the
mitigation of more than 100 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by
2050. Without aggressive action, studies show that HFCs, used in
refrigeration and air conditioning systems, could equal more than a
third of global climate emissions by 2050. The Montreal Protocol
Parties will continue discussions on both ODS banks and HFCs this
year.