"Our planet’s fragile ozone layer is on a path toward full restoration by about 2050. But there’s a hitch: the success has hinged largely on replacing ozone-depleting substances with hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs) – chemicals we now know are highly damaging to the environment. It is time to reduce these pollutants.
"Air conditioning, refrigeration, and insulation often contain factory-made HFCs. They are greenhouse gases that can be hundreds or thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in damaging our climate system, yet their global use is rapidly increasing every year.
“Because of the importance of taking aggressive action on these chemicals to achieve global climate goals, I will be leading the United States delegation at that meeting.
“Over the past year, the US Environmental Protection Agency has completed four separate actions that both expand the list of safer alternatives to HFCs and prohibit them from certain uses in the refrigeration air conditioning, foam, and aerosol sectors where safer alternatives such as hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), hydrocarbons and lower-polluting blends are available.
“Nations that are serious about fighting global climate change need to come to the table in Dubai with a sincere intent to negotiate a global agreement to phase down these harmful chemicals.
“It would set the stage for an ambitious and durable global climate agreement in December, when nearly all nations on Earth will come together in Paris to advance an unprecedented opportunity to protect our planet,” McCarthy wrote in an oped for The Guardian.
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