Amendment to Montreal Protocol should be ambitious and should provide provisions to address energy efficiency, says CSE

The meeting in Vienna was being held to pave the way for just such a deal between the nations of the world when they meet in October this year in Kigali, Rwanda, at the 28th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol.

In Vienna, countries submitted six proposals for baseline, a freeze-date for developing countries and two proposals for developed countries. So far, the Indian proposal remains the most unambitious and conservative among all the proposals submitted.

With the priority on getting in place an agreement this year on HFC phase-down, it was recognised that a flexible approach is needed for developing countries. But there was divergence on fairness, ambitiousness, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and funding.

Energy efficiency emerged as an important component in the negotiations. “There is a need to have a deal that prioritises natural refrigerants during HFC phase-down and India should enhance ambition and push for energy efficiency in equipment,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

CSE has encouraged parties to agree to a deal that ambitiously phases down HFCs while moving to a safer, non-patented technology like natural refrigerants. Considering that the IPRs of new generation chemicals are owned by just a few companies, CSE has recommended that Parties should not permit a situation where a monopoly over new chemicals emerges as an outcome of an important environmental conference. These new generation chemicals also have a high potential for polluting waterbodies and therefore, are unnecessary and should not be funded.

With negotiations expected to end in October, countries have decided to converge ahead in intersession meetings or in an extended OEWG 38, which could take place a couple of days before the meeting in Rwanda, based on the availability of funding.