In a landmark step to combat climate change, about 200 nations, including India, today struck a legally-binding deal after intense negotiations to phase down climate-damaging HFCs that have global warming potential thousand times more than carbon dioxide. Negotiators and policymakers held meetings since yesterday morning and through the night, having intense deliberations to iron out…
After a summer marked by record temperatures around the globe, the world wrapped up beach season with a particularly distressing bit of climate news last month: atmospheric carbon levels have reached 400 ppm, a dreaded climate milestone from which there’s no going back. Fortunately, this bummer of a development was almost immediately followed by announcements…
In an effort to combat climate change, representatives of nearly 200 countries meeting in Rwanda have agreed to limit the use of HFC gases commonly used in refrigeration. A majority of the world’s nations meeting in Rwanda agreed on Saturday to a wide-reaching global deal on reducing greenhouse gases which are used in refrigerators and…
A new deal on greenhouse gases will be “like taking 200 million cars off the road every year,” said Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change in an interview with CBC News. All 197 signatories to the Montreal Protocol — all the countries of the UN plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See,…
Hydrofluorocarbons, which replaced ozone-depleting CFCs, proved disastrous for climate change. Countries have now agreed to ban HFCs – but that may not bring as big a climate benefit as was hoped. It’s a historic achievement in the fight against global warming: Envoys from the nearly 200 nations signed up to the Montreal Protocol gathered at…
KIGALI, Rwanda — Negotiators from more than 170 countries on Saturday reached a legally binding accord to counter climate change by cutting the worldwide use of a powerful planet-warming chemical used in air-conditioners and refrigerators. The talks in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, did not draw the same spotlight as the climate change accord forged…
KIGALI, Rwanda — Environmental groups early Saturday said nations have reached a deal to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide as part of efforts to fight climate change. At issue are hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are used in air conditioners and refrigerators and have been described as the world’s…
A PATH TO PROGRESS The historic Kigali agreement provides an international plan that phases out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), gases used in air conditioners and refrigerators, which contribute to global warming. A historic agreement was reached Saturday morning when nearly 200 nations agreed to phase out a greenhouse gas over 10,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide…
Kudos for doing the job, but now, for all our sakes, please depart. That’s the message the world has given to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the chemicals that saved the ozone layer but turned out to be an escalating threat to the climate. HFCs became widely used in air conditioning and refrigeration after 1987, when the Montreal…
A new deal to reduce the use of powerful climate-changing chemicals will require Senate approval in the US, reports The jubilation and relief that flowed from United Nations climate talks in Rwanda over the weekend may be short-lived in the U.S., where legal experts say the agreement risks being blocked by Republican senators. Weary U.N.…
