EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ISSUES RESOLUTION FOR COP-26 CLIMATE CHANGE MEETING

The European Parliament Resolution on COP26 has called for the European Commission to present their proposal for the F-gas revision to “accelerate the phasing out of HFCs” whereas the current F-gas Regulation has a controlled phase-down of HFCs. EFCTC supports their call for international action to reduce F-gas emissions but believes that the widely supported HFC phase-down will deliver optimum overall emission reductions.

Reduction of HFC emissions is just one part of the wide range of actions necessary to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions to reach net zero. The F-gas regulation phase-down and the Kigali Amendment both recognise that HFCs have an important role for reasons of safety and energy efficiency for a range of applications, including for the widespread adoption of heat pumps.

• The phase-down enables the design and use of lower GWP refrigerants containing HFCs and the continuing use of HFCs where required enabling industry to maintain the drive to improved energy efficiency, waste heat recovery, and the use of renewable energy through heat pumps.
• The phase-down continues to reduce the GWP refrigerant bank of the installed equipment and together with reduced leakage will continue to reduce emissions in the period well beyond 2030 as obsolete equipment is replaced by more energy efficient versions having much lower GWP F-gas refrigerants.
• The certainty of a phase-down enables investment to replace higher GWP HFCs with lower GWP F-gases with similar technical and safety properties enabling similar higher performance energy efficient systems.
• The certainty of a phase-down supports continued investment in the infrastructure for recovery and reclaim of F-gases contributing to the circular economy. Recovered refrigerants that can no longer be used are destroyed.

In addition, the current F-gas Regulation already includes bans on certain uses of higher-GWP HFCs where safe, energy-efficient and cost-effective alternatives have been identified and are commercially available. All applications will be reviewed during the F-gas revision.

Read the EPEE press release and article in Cooling Post for a wider industry perspective.