Nearly 200 countries have agreed to accelerate the elimination of chemicals that threaten the ozone and exacerbate global warming, the United Nations Environmental Program announced Saturday.
UNEP chief Achim Steiner hailed the agreement to move forward bans on dangerous hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) as a "vital signal" in efforts to slow climate change and welcomed China's willingness to back the deal. "It is perhaps the most important breakthrough in an international environment negotiation process for at least five or six years," Steiner said.
"Historic is an often over-used word but not in the case of this agreement made in Montreal. Governments had a golden opportunity to deal with the twin challenges of climate change and protecting the ozone layer and governments took it," Steiner said. Under the deal, developed countries will phase out the production of HCFCs by 2020 and developing states have until 2030 - ten years earlier than previously promised.
"The precise and final savings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions could amount to several billions of tonnes illustrating the complementarities of international environmental agreements," Steiner said. Canada's Environment Minister John Baird called the success of the week-long meeting of 190 countries and the European Union a major step in battling global warming.
"The agreement to speed up the elimination of HCFCs will go down in the books as another successful chapter in the Montreal protocols," he said, referring to the 1987 conference which set the original goal to eliminate the use of HCFCs and related chemicals, often found in refrigerators, fire retardants and hairspray.
"But it will also stand out as a pivotal moment in the international fight against global warming ... It's no secret that the Montreal Protocol had the benefit of helping the ozone layer and slowing devastating effects of climate change."
The countries at the UN-sponsored conference agreed after a week of negotiations to speed up the target date for eliminating the use of HCFCs by 10 years. The original date for developed countries to stop using the ozone-damaging compounds was 2030, with developing nations to follow suit by 2040.
The aim of the original and newest Montreal agreements was to slow and eventually help reverse the expanding hole in the ozone layer, which protects the earth and people from harmful solar rays which can cause skin cancer and accelerate global warming.
Steiner praised China, one of the world's biggest manufacturers and so users of HCFCs, for its support of the negotiations. "We are talking about a burden-sharing formula whereby the international community helps particularly nations like China who particularly here in Montreal have shown a remarkable willingness to reach an international agreement, even though it is of significant consequence for China in implementing that."
The deal moves forward both production freeze targets and complete phase out of HCFCs, which originally became popular with manufacturers as a substitute for more dangerous chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) formally popular as industrial coolants.
In the agreement developing countries agreed to freeze HCFC production and consumption of the chemicals in 2013 rather than 2016. They will totally phase out production by 2030. Developed countries are committed to reducing HCFC consumption by 75 percent in 2010, and completely phase out consumption and production by 2020.
According to a US government statement, the effect will be to reduce by 47 percent potential emissions into the atmosphere of ozone-damaging chemicals. The UNEP said in a statement that the success of the Montreal conference provides a stimulus for the UN climate convention negotiations scheduled for Bali, Indonesia in December.