15.6: Mitigating HFCs- The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol

The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol was adopted in October 2016 and entered into force on January 1, 2019. It has the potential to avoid up to 0.5ºC of future warming by 2100, assuming fast ratification and implementation. The Montreal Protocol is widely considered the world’s best environmental treaty for successfully solving the first great threat to the global atmosphere—the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer by CFCs and related chemicals. Its success over more than three decades has prevented an increase in ultraviolet (UV) radiation that otherwise would have led to increased cancers, cataracts, immune suppression, and other problems. At the same time, that treaty has provided more climate mitigation than any other agreement because CFCs and HCFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases; in 2014, The Economist ranked the Montreal Protocol as the top of all major measures to reduce climate change. It also is the only international treaty with universal membership of all UN countries, and their membership makes them “Parties” to the treaty. Under the Kigali Amendment, the treaty now mandates the phasedown of HFCs. In 2017, Project Drawdown, a comprehensive analysis of climate solutions, ranked the HFC refrigerant transition as the top solution of 100 solutions to reverse global warming.

History of the Montreal Protocol and stratospheric ozone protection

In 1974, Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland, scientists at UC Irvine, published a study in Nature that described the risk to stratospheric ozone from CFCs. As these scientific findings were publicized, they led to consumer boycotts against products such as hair spray containing CFCs in the US, Canada, and Europe, which in turn helped pave the way for national and regional regulations to control CFCs.

But this was not enough to solve the problem and protect the stratospheric ozone layer. In 1981, UNEP assembled a group of experts to discuss developing an international treaty for controlling CFCs. This led to the Montreal Protocol, which was adopted in 1987 and included a mandatory phaseout of CFCs and related gases, starting with a 50% reduction of production and use within 12 years. The treaty is successful because every country is on board and works toward common goals. The treaty has mandatory requirements to phase out the production and use of specific factory-made chemicals, by specific amounts, by specific dates. At the same time, the treaty implements the important principle of “common but differentiated responsibility,” which in this case means that the developed-country Parties are required to phase out the damaging chemicals first and to develop safer alternatives and bring them to scale, which drives down the cost and demonstrates the best way to meet the treaty’s obligations for the developing-country Parties. After a grace period of several years, developing-country Parties are required to start their own phaseouts.

The developed-country Parties also provide funding through the Multilateral Fund (MLF) for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol, to pay the “agreed incremental costs” of the developing-country Parties in meeting their obligations. This funding is negotiated every 3 years and for 2018–2020 was US$500 million. Between 1991 and 2010, the MLF spent US$2.4 billion and achieved emissions reductions of approximately 188–222 gigatons of CO₂eq, which is equivalent to roughly $0.01 per ton of CO₂eq. The phasedown of HFCs may cost $0.22–$0.29 per metric ton of CO₂eq. On a consumer level, a new home air-conditioning system can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000, but the lifetime savings from newer, more efficient refrigerants and equipment can significantly reduce energy consumption, which leads to a reduction in lifetime cost.

Figure 15.6.1 October average minimum ozone over Antarctica over time, measured in Dobson units, which are a measurement of total ozone in the atmosphere. “Since the mid-1990s, global ozone levels have become relatively stable. In fact, because of the Montreal Protocol, model simulations suggest the size of the hole should return to its pre-1980 levels by about 2075. Here, the four globes show monthly-averaged total ozone over Antarctica in October. The graph shows each year’s October average minimum (white dots) over Antarctica. The red curve represents a smoothed version of the white dots.” Reproduced from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Montreal Protocol is a “start-and-strengthen” treaty because it started modestly, learned by doing, helped the Parties to gain confidence that they could meet their obligations, and then strengthened the control measures time and again. Since its inception, the Montreal Protocol has been amended five times to add new chemicals and adjusted six times to speed up existing phaseouts. The Kigali Amendment of 2016 is the sixth amendment, which adds HFCs to the list of controlled substances and requires that they be phased down in the coming decades. We’ll return to the Kigali Amendment shortly.

The Montreal Protocol has phased out roughly 100 chemicals by nearly 100%. Success of the Montreal Protocol has reduced exposure to UV radiation that otherwise would have led to skin cancer, eye damage and cataracts, and immune suppression. Without the Montreal Protocol, skin cancer would have quadrupled by 2100. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculates “that full implementation of the Montreal Protocol is expected to result in the avoidance of more than 280 million cases of skin cancer, approximately 1.6 million skin cancer deaths, and more than 45 million cases of cataracts in the United States, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in societal health benefits in the United States over the period 1990 to 2165.” The reductions of these cancers and cataract cases have been valued at more than 11 times the costs of phasing out CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.

Figure 15.6.2 The immense amount of avoided emissions under the Montreal Protocol through 2010, as well as the projected future avoided emissions impact from phasing down HFCs. This figure is based on a similar figure in the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development’s Primer on HFCs (available at http://www.igsd.org/primers/hfc/), which contains additional information about the sources referenced in the figure by numbers in parentheses.

In addition to avoiding further damage to the stratospheric ozone layer, the reduction of these ozone-depleting substances has also avoided more climate warming that any other strategy. Professor V. Ramanathan calculated that CFCs and related chemicals were powerful greenhouse gases and published his results in 1975, the year after Molina and Roland published their results. These scientific papers spurred early consumer boycotts and national and regional measures to control CFCs, followed by the Montreal Protocol. This early start to reduce and ultimately ban CFCs not only put the ozone layer on the path to recovery, but also avoided an amount of future warming that otherwise would have been 24–76 gigatons CO₂eq per year—up to twice the amount of warming that CO₂ is causing today. The avoided warming just from the Montreal Protocol is about 135 gigatons CO₂eq, or 11 gigatons CO₂eq per year. The CFC story shows the importance of starting early to address climate pollutants, which we unfortunately did not do with efforts to cut CO₂.

Path to the Kigali Amendment

The path to the Kigali Amendment began in 2009 when the low-lying island country of the Federated States of Micronesia, along with Mauritius, proposed an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that would phase down high-GWP HFCs. Morocco immediately joined the proposal, which was soon followed by a similar proposal from the North American Parties—the US, Canada, and Mexico. Over the next few years, more and more Parties joined in support, and in 2015 India, previously one of the most reluctant Parties, submitted its own proposal, as did the EU, with the Africa Group (representing all 54 countries) also submitting an informal proposal and becoming a strong champion for the HFC phasedown.

Negotiating a treaty or an amendment to a treaty requires consensus among all the Parties, and consensus is built on the foundation of science (in this case, to understand how damaging HFCs are to climate), technology (to understand what substitutes are available to replace HFCs), and economics (to determine what the substitutes will cost and who will pay). Another important factor is competitiveness (to determine which companies located in which countries might benefit from phasing out old chemicals that were soon to lose their intellectual property protection and become commodities that any company could make without paying a royalty to the inventor, and which countries might lose during a phaseout). Over time, more and more of the Parties learned the underlying facts about HFCs and could communicate those facts to their governments and industries, to help formulate their negotiating strategy. At the same time, early movers, including the US and the EU, took specific actions to control HFCs at home. Once companies in these major markets were required to phase down HFCs under national and regional laws and were compelled to develop climate-friendly alternatives, these companies started encouraging their governments to “multilateralize” the controls to all of the countries of the world to ensure the playing field stayed level (and to open up new markets for alternatives they were developing).

Strong US leadership was critical for building the consensus for the Kigali Amendment. President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy all became champions of the HFC phasedown. President Obama and Secretary Kerry negotiated bilateral agreements with various leaders, starting with President Xi of China in 2013. This was done during the first meeting between President Obama and President Xi, where they agreed on two things: first, to cooperate to reduce the risk from North Korea, and second, to cooperate to phase down HFCs. President Obama negotiated agreements on HFCs with other heads of government, including Prime Minister Modi of India, President Macri of Argentina, and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan. Along with the support of the island States and the Africa Group, this ensured that the battle to finish the Kigali Amendment would not be a contest between the rich and poor countries.

A final push came in September 2016 when the White House assembled a “fast start” fund of $80 million to help developing-country Parties phase down HFCs and improve energy efficiency of air conditioners and other cooling devices. Governments provided $27 million, and a group of philanthropic donors provided the other $53 million. This fast-start fund was announced in New York by Secretary Kerry and other ministers, in association with the High Ambition Coalition of more than 100 Parties. The $27 million from governments was later added to the Multilateral Fund, and the remaining funds are being disbursed by the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), organized under the ClimateWorks Foundation in San Francisco.

The following month, on October 16, 2016, at 7 AM Saturday, after an all-night negotiating session, the Parties to the Montreal Protocol agreed to the Kigali Amendment to phase down HFCs (Figure 15.6.3). A few minutes after the agreement, after the cheering stopped, the negotiators from Rwanda and Morocco introduced a draft decision to explore how to increase energy efficiency of cooling equipment during the phase down of HFCs. The Parties agreed to this decision too.

Figure 15.6.3 Rwanda’s Minister for Environment Vincent Biruta makes the Kigali Amendment official. Photograph by IISD/Kiara Worth.

Implementing the Kigali Amendment

As of May 2, 2019, 71 Parties have ratified the Kigali Amendment, which means the amendment entered into force at the earliest date set by the terms of the amendment, on January 1, 2019. Under the initial phasedown schedule, the Kigali Amendment will avoid up to 0.4ºC of warming. Faster implementation that leapfrogs over HFCs during the ongoing phaseout of HCFCs can sweep up the additional 0.1ºC to achieve the full 0.5ºC of avoided warming projected by scientists. Previous phaseout schedules were accelerated by the Parties, and it is anticipated that the Parties will do the same with the Kigali Amendment, especially because climate-friendly alternatives are readily available. A strategy that leapfrogs from HCFCs to climate-friendly alternatives and avoids HFCs also will prevent the buildup of HFC banks in products and equipment, with the potential to avoid an additional 53 gigatons of CO₂eq.

As always under the Montreal Protocol, developed countries (known as non-Article 5, or non-A5, Parties within the Montreal Protocol) will take action first, reducing consumption and production of HFCs by 10% (compared with a 2011–2013 baseline) starting in 2019, with a second group (listed in the footnote to Table 15.6.1) beginning their phasedown in 2020. By 2036, both groups of developed countries will have reduced consumption and production by 85% of the 2011–2013 baseline. Most developing countries (Article 5, or A5, Parties) will freeze consumption and production in 2024 and step down to 20% of a 2020–2022 baseline by 2045. A group of countries with very high ambient temperatures were given a few more years to reach these goals because warmer temperatures may require further improvements in refrigerants and cooling equipment.

Figure 15.6.4 Warming avoided by the Kigali Amendment. Shown are global HFC scenarios without global HFC controls and with full compliance with the Kigali Amendment. Also shown is a scenario in which global production of HFCs is phased out in 2020. Note, the contribution from HFC-23 emissions is not included in either. For comparison of the benefit from HFC mitigation, warming at 2100 from all greenhouse gases is projected to contribute an additional 1.4ºC for a moderate-emissions scenario and 4.8ºC for a high-emissions scenario, relative to the 1986–2005 global average temperature (which is the baseline used by the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report and represents warming of 0.61ºC above preindustrial temperatures). GtCO₂eq yr⁻1 = gigatons of CO₂ equivalent per year. From WMO 2018.

Table 15.6.1 Phasedown schedule under the Kigali Amendment

	A5 Parties Group1	A5 Parties Group2*	Non-A5 Parties Group 1	Non-A5 Parties Group2**
Baseline	2020–2022	2024–2026	2011–2013	2011–2013
Freeze	2024	2028
1st step	2029: 90%	2032: 90%	2019: 90%	2020: 95%
2nd step	2035: 70%	2037: 80%	2024: 60%	2025: 65%
3rd step	2040: 50%	2042: 70%	2029: 30%	2029: 30%
4th step			2034: 20%	2034: 20%
Final step	2045: 20%	2047: 15%	2036: 15%	2036: 15%

*Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates

**Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan

Non-Article 5 (Non-A5) Parties are developed countries that will begin phasedown in 2019. Article 5 (A5) Parties are developing countries that are given additional time before beginning their phasedown. Some Parties within the Non-A5 and A5 categories are grouped together for a modified schedule that will allow more time for phasedown.

Importance of improving efficiency of cooling equipment during HFC phasedown

Figure 15.6.5 Estimated annual emissions abatement potential of air conditioner stock in 2030. The red and blue represent the refrigerant transition and efficiency improvement benefits, respectively. The avoided emissions are compared with proposed projects, represented by the green bars. From Shah et al. 2015.

At the conclusion of the Kigali negotiations, the Parties also agreed to consider opportunities to improve energy efficiency for even greater climate benefits. While previous transitions under the Montreal Protocol catalyzed improvements in energy efficiency of cooling equipment, this time the Parties were determined to actively promote improvements in efficiency, including promoting new and more advanced components as appliance manufacturers make the switch to low-GWP refrigerants. According to the 2018 quadrennial assessment by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol, improvements in energy efficiency of air conditioners and other cooling equipment can double the benefit of the Kigali Amendment, with the potential to cumulatively avoid up to 1ºC of warming by the end of the century.

The Economist magazine calls air conditioning one of the great overlooked industries of the world. It asks what the most effective ways are to protect the climate and concludes that it’s not to become a vegetarian, or even to replant the Amazon. Rather, the answer is to radically improve air conditioners. The Economist notes that phasing down HFCs will avoid the equivalent of 90 billion tons of CO₂ by 2050, and making air conditioners more energy efficient could double that. This compares, they continue, to having half the world’s population give up meat, which would avoid 66 billion tons of CO₂, or successfully replanting two-thirds of degraded tropical forests, which would avoid 61 billion tons of CO₂.

With a growing population, an expanding middle class, and a warming climate, the demand for air conditioners and other cooling equipment is growing fast. Hot cities like Delhi and Beijing already use half of their electricity to run air conditioners, and even in France, demand for air conditioners in 2018 grew by almost 200% above 2017. In India, air conditioner ownership has increased from 2 to 5 million units between 2006 and 2011 and is forecast to reach 200 million by 2030. Globally, there are 3.6 billion cooling appliances in use, which will increase to 9.5 billion by 2050. To provide cooling for all who will need it in a warming world—and not just those who can afford it—will require 14 billion cooling appliances by 2050.

Presently, over 1.1 billion people lack access to cooling, which makes it harder to escape poverty, to keep children healthy, to keep vaccines stable, to preserve food, and to keep economies productive. Already, about 30% of the global population is exposed to life-threatening temperatures for nearly 20 days per year, and heat waves kill roughly 12,000 people annually. As warming continues, deaths from extreme heat could multiply 20-fold by 2050, and by 2100, 75% of humanity could face deadly heat.

In the coming years, mandating energy efficiency alongside the transition away from high-GWP HFCs will be crucial for climate protection. Policies to require stringent energy efficiency can cut future energy demand by at least half. Even a modest 30% improvement for just room air conditioner efficiency can save enough energy to avoid the need to construct up to 2,500 medium-sized, peak-load power plants globally by 2050, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Rocky Mountain Institute is offering a Global Cooling Prize of $3 million to develop residential cooling technology that has “at least 5x less climate impact when compared to a baseline unit.” Improving efficiency of cooling equipment will provide multiple benefits, including making ownership more affordable, more secure, and more sustainable and saving as much as US$2.9 trillion in investment, fuel, and operating costs between 2017 and 2050. This will be particularly important in the hotter regions of the world, where many of the poorest live.