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- Paper Pulp Mills - Uruguay
- Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
- Climate Change and Human Rights
OZONE Deal Close!
Environment Delegations at Montreal on Verge of Agreement to Slow Climate Change
September 19, 2007 – Montreal . All but a handful of nations have indicated they will close a deal this Friday to accelerate the phaseout of ozone depleting substances called HCFCs ( hydro chlorofluorocarbons ), which will make an enormous contribution to slowing climate change.
State delegations scrambled this week to have a say in the lively negotiations taking place on the 20 th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, over accelerating the HCFC phaseouts that had been projected by 2050, but which now may occur as early as 2020 or 2030, if a deal is a reached by Friday, when the negotiations come to a close.
A reduced HCFC Working Group committee ironed out a draft agreement yesterday, sooner than anyone had expected. What should have been 10 States negotiating technical details, turned out to be 30, due to the high interest in the affair, and 40 others decided to stay on in the room as onlookers while the historic deal was being mapped out. The group managed to lay out 13 sections to the agreement, five of which directly address climate benefits .
Other sections which seem to have reached consensus among the States focus on baseline assessments, and freeze dates. Russia , China and South Africa have surfaced as the critical States to bring aboard, as they have professed differences regarding financing schemes and the feasibility of industrial investments and transformations needed to ensure the phaseouts are actually realized. The UN estimates that the phaseouts will cost the world some US$3 to 5 billion, a modest amount for its large climate and ozone benefits.
The proposed draft will be reviewed today, and a new draft will likely be presented by the end of the day.
The linking of Ozone to Climate debates, and more importantly the political structures which regulate them, is being heralded by many as a fundamental step in the improvement of the world's environmental governance and compliance system with powerful lessons for the post-Kyoto discussions now underway.
The proposal to phase out HCFCs, commonly found in refrigerants, was tabled several months ago and is now being led by a strong coalition of developing and developed countries, including Argentina and Brazil, along with several low-lying island pacific States, as well as the US and EU, following new scientific research showing that fixing the ozone gap has slowed climate change by up to 12 years, and could still do a lot more, up to 5 times the expected gains from the failed Kyoto commitments.
If a deal is reached Friday in Montreal , we will have made a critical contribution to addressing our pressing climate problems.
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