Signatories to the Montreal Protocol have taken new steps towards amending the treaty in a bid to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and mitigate climate change while continuing to protect the ozone layer.

Countries made progress on the so-called ‘Dubai Pathway’ to limiting use of HFCs at the Protocol’s 37th Open-Ended Working Group meeting ending on 8 April in Geneva. The chemicals –found in refrigeration and aerosols for example – hold a high global warming potential and their use is growing fast.

During the event, overarching principles for reducing the amount of HFCs produced and consumed were endorsed and progress was made on an agreement for funding HFC control measures. Countries also considered a report on climate-friendly alternatives to the chemicals and worked on an exemption mechanism for where no alternatives to them exist.

Were a deal to be finalised, 105 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide would avoid being emitted, equivalent to 0.4 degrees Celsius of global warming by the end of the century.

Under the Montreal Protocol which UNEP helped secure a global consensus for, 98% of ozone-depleting substances have been phased-out worldwide.

Yet HFC emissions are currently growing at an annual rate of around 7%, leading 41 parties to the Protocol to table four amendments aimed at curbing HFCs.

Thanks to the Protocol, one of world’s most successful environmental treaties, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 benchmark levels- the time before significant ozone layer depletion- before the middle of the century in mid-latitudes and the Arctic.

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