The U.S. anticipates cracking down on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a reduction in a group of potent greenhouse gases used in air conditioners and refrigerators as the regulator moves forward with emissions targets under the Biden administration.

The EPA achieved an 85% reduction in hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs over the next 15 years. Its new regulations are expected to reduce the equivalent of 4.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide (approximately three years of U.S. energy emissions) between 2022 and 2050.

“By reducing HFCs, which could be hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming plans, the EPA is taking important actions to help control global temperature rise,” EPA administrator Michael Regan said Monday.

Congress ordered the regulator to reduce HFC output and use any correction that happened last year. While the Trump administration backed down dozens of environmental regulations as part of its deregulatory action – including delaying the ratification of the global agreement on HFCs – President Joe Biden has made climate change a priority.

Last month, Biden made a commitment to the US reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by the end of the 2005s, since 2005 levels, and has rejoined the Paris climate agreement.

A while a few states they have already introduced measures to reduce the use of HFC, the EPA rules would propose the first national limit on chemicals.

“This rapid move to reduce the very strong climate pollutants in the BPA EPA will bring tremendous benefits to public health and climate for all Americans,” said David Doniger, environmental advocacy group for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Replacing HFCs is a critical and fully feasible first step in tackling the worst of the climate crisis.”

HFCs are used in refrigeration, air conditioning, building insulation, fire extinguishing systems and aerosols. In recent decades, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have become increasingly widespread instead of other chemicals that damage the ozone layer.

The CFCs disappeared under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But HFCs have been shown to be powerful greenhouse gases and there is a growing uproar to keep them from being used.

Under the Obama administration, the US has signed an agreement Kigalin, Rwanda, to get rid of the HFCs but the Trump administration did not send it to the Senate to confirm it. The EPA said global extinction could prevent global warming to 0.5 C by 2100.

Biden’s two senior climate lieutenants – climate envoy John Kerry and White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy – helped negotiate the Kigali deal. The Biden Congress wants to ratify it.