Tag Archives: HFCs

The Senate Ratifies the Kigali Amendment: Is Bipartisan Climate Action Possible?

Earlier this week, the Senate ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.  The amendment, which has already been ratified by most other countries, will result in the phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons, a group of potent greenhouse gases.  Substantively, this is a big deal.  Estimates are that it will prevent about ½ a degree Celsius in global warming.  That’s a meaningful impact. 

Politically,… More

The Montreal Protocol Is Not a Climate Change Statute

Earlier this week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down part of an EPA rule promulgated pursuant to the Montreal Protocol.  The section that was struck down would have required manufacturers of HFC-134a, which is not ozone-depleting and which had previously been determined by EPA to be an acceptable replacement for ozone-depleting compounds, to find other replacements, because EPA determined in 2015 that HFC-134a did not “reduce overall risks to human health and the environment.”  Why? … More