Hydrofluorocarbons – or HFCs – are gases most people have never heard of, even though almost everybody in America has bought their fair share of them. They come inside cars and air conditioners and refrigerators as the newest gases of choice in cooling systems and are many thousands of times more potent than CO2 as climate warming agents. Use of these gases is expected to mushroom with rising prosperity in developing nations, and if left unchecked could account for as much as 45% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. It is an invisible emergency within a climate emergency whose outsized contours were confirmed in a scientific paper published last month by the National Academy of Sciences. The public is barely aware of the issue, though, and as the White House works to hammer out its policy, it seems to want to keep it that way. As a result, HFCs have become one of the most important sleeper issues in the international climate arena, caught in a Byzantine crossfire of conflicting interests and turf wars both within the administration and outside it. At stake right now is an opportunity for the U.S. to demonstrate international leadership and score a big victory for the climate during meetings in Geneva next week. Most stakeholders expect the opportunity will be squandered, even though many see an inspiring victory within easy reach. "We can take HFCs out before Copenhagen and offer it as Exhibit A to the world to show what can be done to protect the climate," said Durwood Zaelke, founder and president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. "This is exactly the kind of signal the climate markets need, and the big question now is what will the U.S. do." read more

less than 216 day(s) - Thursday July,09 2009 @ 12:48 PM
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