Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
6/14/13
President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping finalized a new agreement over the weekend aimed at phasing down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The White House announced the agreement June 8 following a two-day summit in California. “Regarding HFCs, the United States and China agreed to work together and with other countries through multilateral approaches that include using the expertise and institutions of the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs, while continuing to include HFCs within the scope of [the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC] and its Kyoto Protocol provisions for accounting and reporting of emissions,” the text of the agreement states.
HFCs are a potent greenhouse gas used most commonly as refrigerants. While they do not deplete the earth’s stratospheric ozone layer, their use has grown rapidly over the last two decades since they are frequently used as a replacement for other ozone-depleting substances being phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The U.S., Canada and Mexico have for years pushed an amendment to the agreement that would gradually phase down the production and consumption of HFCs, which the White House said if left unabated could grow to nearly 20 percent of CO2 emissions by mid-century, “a serious climate mitigation concern.” Under that plan, the world’s developed countries would lead the phase-down, providing technical and financial support to developing nations that would later follow. The White House said that such a global phasedown of HFCs could reduce about 90 gigatons of CO2 equivalent by 2050, equal to roughly two years worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
‘A Big Deal’
Environmentalists quickly greeted the agreement, since China until recently was one of a handful of rapidly developing countries to resist the North American HFC phasedown effort. For that reason, David Doniger, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate and Air Program policy director, called the agreement a “big deal.” “The U.S.-China agreement opens the door to starting real negotiations on an HFC phase-down,” he wrote earlier this week on his blog. “And maybe even to sealing a deal at the Montreal parties’ annual meeting in October.” The announcement also pleased a group of Congressional Democrats that had called on the President to spearhead such an agreement ahead of the meeting. “The United States and China working together to tackle climate change is a major breakthrough,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “A global phase-down of HFCs would eliminate more heat-trapping gases by 2050 than the United States emits in an entire decade.”
Some observers cautiously expressed hope that the HFC agreement could lead to cooperation between the U.S. and China on higher-profile climate-related treaties. In recent years, the two economic powerhouses have typically been the thorns in the international community’s side as it has tried to hammer out a legally-binding treaty to limit global carbon emissions under the UNFCCC. China has been cautious to agree to anything that could limit the country’s rapid economic growth—and has frequently called on so-called historical emitters like the U.S. to take on a larger share of the emissions reductions responsibility—while the U.S. has bucked legally-binding responsibility because countries like China have avoided such pledges.
But recent actions between the two countries have indicated that cooperation is possible. The U.S. and China tentatively signed onto the UNFCCC’s 2011 Durban Accords, under which both countries agreed to eventually take on legally-binding reduction targets beginning in 2020. In April, both countries announced the creation of a Climate Change Working Group to “advance cooperation on technology, research, conservation and alternative and renewable energy” ahead of a high-level meeting between the two countries next month.
New Rhetoric
Both countries have also modestly stepped up their rhetoric about combating domestic climate change. During his inaugural and State of the Union addresses this year, President Obama vowed to make climate change a priority in his second term, but in subsequent months has been thin on specifics. Meanwhile, China has begun rolling out a cap-and-trade pilot program in seven major cities and provinces. There has also been widespread speculation of the government implementing a modest tax on carbon, but officials in recent months have walked back those comments.
In a June 7 speech after meeting privately with Xi, Obama spoke about the need for the U.S. and China to work together on mitigating climate change. “China as the largest country, as it continues to develop, will be a larger and larger carbon emitter unless we find new mechanisms for green growth. The United States, we have the largest carbon footprint per capita in the world; we’ve got to bring down our carbon levels in order to accommodate continued growth,” Obama said. “And so that will translate then into opportunities for specific work around green technologies and research and development and interactions between our scientists so that we can, together, help advance the goal of a sustainable planet, even as we continue to grow and develop.”
