Published, The Age, October 15 2016.
Nearly 200 nations hammered out a legally binding deal to cut back on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners, a Rwandan minister announced to loud cheers on Saturday, in a major step against climate change.
The deal, which includes the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China, divides countries into three groups with different deadlines to reduce the use of factory-made hydroflurocarbon (HFC) gases, which can be 10,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as greenhouse gases.
Climate warming began 180 years ago. An international research project has found human-induced climate change is first detectable in the Arctic and tropical oceans around the 1830s, earlier than expected.
"It's a monumental step forward," US Secretary of State John Kerry said as he left talks in the Rwandan capital of Kigali late on Friday.
As Rwanda's Minister for Natural Resources, Vincent Biruta, began spelling out the terms of the deal shortly after sunrise on Saturday, applause from negotiators who has been up all night drowned out his words.
Efforts to curb global warming may have just received a major boost. Photo: AP Photo.
Under the pact, developed nations, including much of Europe and the United States, commit to reducing their use of the gases incrementally, started with a 10 per cent cut by 2019 and reaching 85 per cent by 2036.
Many wealthier nations have already begun to reduce their use of HFCs.
Two groups of developing countries will freeze their use of the gases by either 2024 or 2028, and then gradually reduce their use. India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and the Gulf countries will meet the later deadline.
They needed more time because they have fast-expanding middle classes and hot climates, and because India feared damaging its growing industries.
Fridges and air conditioners can contain highly potent greenhouse gases.
"Last year in Paris, we promised to keep the world safe from the worst effects of climate change. Today, we are following through on that promise," said UN environment chief Erik Solheim in a statement.
"This amendment to the Montreal Protocol is the single most important measure the global community could take to limit global warming in the short-term," Andrew Light, distinguished senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, said.
"Because HFCs are thousands of time more potent as a warming agent than carbon dioxide, a successful phase down can avoid up to a half a degree Celsius of global warming by the end of this century."
Gaining momentum.
The deal binding 197 nations crowns a wave of measures to help fight climate change this month. Last week, the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb climate-warming emissions passed its required threshold to enter into force after India, Canada and the European Parliament ratified it.
But unlike the Paris agreement, the Kigali deal is legally binding, has very specific timetables and has an agreement by rich countries to help poor countries adapt their technology.
The United Nations says phasing out HFCs will cost billions of dollars.
Environmental groups had called for an ambitious agreement on cutting HFCs to limit the damage from the roughly 1.6 billion new air conditioning units expected to come on stream by 2050, reflecting increased demand from an expanding middle class in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The HFC talks build on the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which succeeded in phasing out the use of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs), widely used at the time in refrigeration and aerosols.
The aim was to stop the depletion of the ozone layer, which shields the plant from ultraviolet rays linked to skin cancer and other conditions.
