Some good news for the planet coming out of President Obama's meeting today with Chinese President Xi Jinping. From Think Progress:
The United States and China announced today that they will work together and with other countries to “phase down” the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are extremely potent greenhouse gases. A global phaseout would be the equivalent of cutting 90 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping just finished a two-day meeting in California initially thought to be more of an unscripted chance for the two leaders to forge a personal relationship than a meeting with any specific policy agenda. This is Xi’s first meeting with Obama as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, which is the analogue to the Chinese presidency. Recently China has made news on plans to cut carbon emissions but then appeared to partially walk some of that news back. The fact that powerful greenhouse gases were on the agenda during their talks is a welcome sign. And if the so-called “Group of Two” regularly acts to reduce the use of substances that cause climate change, it makes it much more likely that the rest of the world will agree to do the same.
Congressional Democrats urged the President to bring up HFCs during the meeting in a letter on Wednesday. According to the White House, the specific agreement between China and the U.S. reads:
Regarding HFCs, the United States and China agreed to work together and with other countries through multilateral approaches that include using the expertise and institutions of the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs, while continuing to include HFCs within the scope of UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol provisions for accounting and reporting of emissions.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
From the comments, indycam shares a description of HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) from thinkglobalgreen.org:
Hydrofluorocarbons, or "super greenhouse gases," are gases used for refrigeration and air conditioning, and known as super greenhouse gases because the combined effect of their soaring use and high global warming potential could undercut the benefits expected from the reduction of other greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Used as refrigerants, they were introduced by the chemical industry to replace ozone destroying CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) which have (almost) been phased out by the Montreal Protocol. However, HFCs production is rising by 15% per year. HFCs are 3,830 times more potent than CO2 with a lifetime of 14 years.
http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/...