By DPA
Montreal : Environmental ministers and senior officials from 191 nations meeting in Montreal this week are close to reaching a deal on a crucial environmental agreement to further reduce the use of ozone-damaging chemicals, a United Nations official said Friday.
Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme, said negotiations to freeze the production and phase out the use of ozone-damaging chemicals known as hyrdrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) were focused on three areas.
“They are discussing what date to freeze the production (of HCFCs) and what are the steps and the timeline on the way to the phase-out,” Nuttall said.
In addition, some countries want to be allowed to keep a small percentage of HCFC production to service existing equipment until new technology is available, Nuttall said.
The HCFCs came to replace more dangerous, banned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). In the 1980s, a series of international treaties, culminating with the 1987 Montreal Protocol, banned the use of CFCs after scientists connected the chemicals to holes being eaten into the ozone, the atmospheric layer that screens out ultraviolet radiation. Radiation exposure from the sun spurs the growth and severity of human skin cancer.
As an interim measure to replace CFCs the chemical industry developed hyrdrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) for use in refrigeration, air conditioning, foam production and other applications. In the meantime, climbing temperatures and world affluence has vastly increased demand for air conditioning, boosting production of HCFCs, which have their own problems.
They also erode the ozone layer, if to a lesser extent than CFCs, and produce a harmful carbon emission called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which contribute to global warming, Nuttall explained.
UNEP meetings this week aim to hammer out an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that would see an accelerated freeze and phase-out HCFCs.
The calendar established by the 1987 Montreal Protocol calls for developed countries to stop using ozone-depleting chemicals found in many refrigerators, air conditioning units and hairspray by 2030, and for developing nations to follow suit by 2040.
But the United States and the European Union, backed by UNEP, want to move that final phase-out forward by 10 years, Nuttal said.