Inside Climate
News has been reporting on this issue for a few years now and deserves credit
for putting it out there and keeping it out there. The latest research is a
collaboration of Inside Climate News and Foreign Policy. Basically, what they
found is that it is very likely that China is not limiting HFC-23 emissions as
much as they say they are, according to their reporting numbers.
HFC-23, also known as
trifluoromethane, is an undesired gaseous byproduct from the manufacturing of
other chemicals, including those used to make Teflon.
“Pairing HFC-23 concentrations in the atmosphere with
meteorological models, the researchers were able to tease out how much of the
gas was released and in many cases where it came from.”
China ratified the Kigali
Amendment to the Montreal Protocol in 2021. The amendment requires that the
waste gas be destroyed through incineration rather than be released to the
atmosphere. Incineration can destroy 99.99% of the gas without incurring high
costs. About two dozen chemical plants in East China. Production of
Chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22), a chemical feedstock used to make other
polymers, is believed to be the source of 95 percent of all HFC-23. It is
concerning that China’s reported emissions of HFC-23 are five times lower than
what is being measured in the atmosphere to be from those plants. The annual
emissions not abated are equivalent to the annual emissions of 55 coal-fired
power plants, so this is quite a lot of global warming potential.
The Inside Climate News
article suggests that the issue that could make the Kigali Amendment seem
unbinding is the inclusion of the words that emissions should be reduced “to
the extent practicable.” At issue is whether those four words mean to the
extent that is economically feasible or, as many argue, to the extent that is
technologically feasible. They argue that it is technologically feasible to
destroy nearly all of these emissions at a reasonable cost.
Only the East China emissions
can be more or less quantified.
“HCFC-22 is also manufactured in India, Russia and other
parts of China beyond its eastern region. However, the Advanced Global
Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), the global monitoring network used to
detect HFC-23, is unable to quantify emissions from these locations due to a
lack of monitoring stations in these areas.”
Perhaps this is yet another case where China, Russia, and
India skirt international rules simply because they can get away with it. China
is the main culprit, since it produces more than two-thirds of the world’s
HCFC-22. According to the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment, 17 out
of the 19 active HCFC-22 producers had installed incinerators as of 2021. A
Chinese delegate at the most recent Montreal Protocol meeting said greater
technical capacity is needed to fully reduce those emissions. Now, the
countries in the agreement are calling for the HCFC-22 plants to report how
they calculate emissions and offering best practice solutions to eliminate more
emissions. There are not currently any penalties for failing to prevent HFC-23
emissions. In January 2024, the ministry introduced draft rules laying out how
companies should measure and report their emissions. That guidance set a
standard for destroying 99.99 percent of HFC-23 emissions. Thus, it appears
that future emissions will be lowered once that guidance is enforced, which has
yet to occur.
“From 2019 to 2023, emissions dropped 30 percent in
eastern China and 19 percent globally. However, the reductions were nowhere
near what was anticipated under the agreement.”
The Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued a
notice for companies to destroy the waste gas emissions, but did not establish
emissions standards nor offer a means to penalize those plants if they failed
to comply. It may be that push-back from the individual chemical plants is an
issue, as suggested by one Chinese researcher.
“In April, the ministry published a new national plan to
implement the Montreal Protocol, including enhanced measurement, reporting and
monitoring of HFC-23 emissions from HCFC-22 plants. But the plan did not
include any details on enforcement.”
As of 2023, no U.S. plant that produced HFC-23 exceeded the
limit of 0.1% emissions, according to the EPA. Thus, we know that reduction of
those emissions is possible at a reasonable cost.
“Incinerators that destroy HFC-23 cost approximately $4
million to $7 million to install, depending on the size of the plant, according
to data provided by the Chinese government to the U.N. in 2017.”
“Chinese chemical companies received billions of dollars
in incentives through a U.N. climate program, as well as subsequent subsidies
from the Chinese government, to install and operate these incinerators at
HCFC-22 plants in China.”
Thus, there is little excuse for non-compliance. The UN
programs paid for these systems to be installed. There are ongoing operational
costs, but they are between 50 and 1000 times lower than the costs to capture
an equivalent amount of CO2, for comparison.
Chinese scientists are also
working on a potential breakthrough of converting HFC-23 back into HCFC-22.
“At present, China has made a major breakthrough in the
key technology of HFC-23 resource conversion, and has built the world's first
HFC-23 conversion HCFC-22 engineering device, which directly reduces CO₂
equivalent by 7.4 million tons per year. In August 2024, this technology was
selected as one of the "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Innovations
for China's Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality in 2023", providing a
technical solution for the sustainable emission reduction of HFC-23 in China.
"It is recommended to encourage and promote the
reduction of HFC-23 by-product rate, accelerate the promotion and application
of HFC-23 conversion technology in the domestic fluorine chemical industry,
promote the technological innovation and industrial upgrading of the fluorine
chemical industry as a whole, and promote the high-quality development of the
industry under the premise of achieving the performance goal."
Other hydrofluorocarbon
chemical plants, semiconductor manufacturing, and other facilities may be
contributing to the HFC-23 concentrations. Those emission sources need to be
determined and quantified. HCFC-22 used to be used as a refrigerant, but it is
now illegal for that use, although there could be some illegal production of it
as a refrigerant going on. Some illegal HCFC-22 production has been documented.
In 2018, it was determined that the illegal ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11
detected in the atmosphere was a result of illegal Chinese manufacturing for
use in polyurethane foam. These emissions were successfully eliminated. Thus,
it seems likely that HFC-23 emissions should similarly be
eliminated.
“The transformation of HCFC-22 into Teflon is one major
concern for scientists. That process can release additional HFC-23 emissions.
Another recent study, based on local air monitoring in southern China, found
that this process “could be emerging as an increasingly significant emission
source of HFC‐23” and
merits further attention since those plants fall outside of the Kigali
Agreement’s reporting requirements.”
“It is probably the most important of the remaining
sources, but it is nowhere near as important [as HCFC-22 production],” Adam
said.
Another potential source is
the degradation of hydrofluoroolefins in the atmosphere. These are refrigerants
with lower global warming potential (GWP) that replaced those with higher
GWP. They can produce some HFC-23 when they break down in the
atmosphere.
China needs better local air
monitoring around HCFC-22 plants. Unfortunately, the Trump administration
included in its recent budget significant cuts to the AGAGE network’s 16 air
monitoring stations worldwide, funded by NASA’s Earth Sciences Division. If
global monitoring decreases, it will be easier for countries like China to
skirt destroying the waste gas while responsible countries like the U.S. and
E.U. destroy nearly all of their HFC-23 emissions, leading to unfair competition.
A December 2024 paper in Communications Earth & Environment detailed global HFC-23 emissions and sources. The abstract and a figure from the paper are below. The figure shows the difference between reported and observed emissions.
Abstract
“HFC-23 (trifluoromethane) is a potent greenhouse gas
released to the atmosphere primarily as a by-product of HCFC-22
(chlorodifluoromethane) synthesis. Since 2020, the Kigali Amendment to the
Montreal Protocol has required Parties to destroy their HFC-23 emissions to the
extent possible. Here, we present updated HFC-23 emissions estimated from
atmospheric observations. Globally, emissions fell to 14.0 ± 0.9 Gg
yr-1 in 2023 from their maximum in 2019 of 17.3 ± 0.8 Gg
yr-1, but remained five times higher than reported in 2021. Atmospheric
observation-based emissions for eastern China, the world’s largest HCFC-22
producer, were also found to be substantially higher than 2020-2022 reported
emissions. We estimate that potential HFC-23 sources not directly linked to
HCFC-22 production explain only a minor, albeit highly uncertain, fraction of
this discrepancy. Our findings suggest that HFC-23 emissions have not been
destroyed to the extent reported by the Parties since the implementation of the
Kigali Amendment.”
References:
A
Restricted Climate Super Pollutant Is Pumped Out at Far Higher Levels Than
Countries Admit. What Happens Next? Phil McKenna and Lili Pike. May 21, 2025. A
Restricted Climate Super Pollutant Is Pumped Out at Far Higher Levels Than
Countries Admit. What Happens Next? - Inside Climate News
China
Claims It Slashed Emissions of a Major Super Pollutant. The Data Says
Otherwise. Lili Pike and Phil McKenna. Foreign Policy. May 21, 2025. China's
HFC-23 Emissions High Despite Kigali Amendment
Li
Hui: Increase the sustainable emission reduction of fluorine-containing
greenhouse gas HFC-23. Li Donghai. China Electric Power News. March 6, 2025. Li
Hui: Increase the sustainable emission reduction of fluorinated greenhouse gas
HFC-23--China Energy News Network
Emissions
of HFC-23 do not reflect commitments made under the Kigali Amendment. Ben Adam,
Luke M. Western, Jens Mühle, Haklim Choi, Paul B. Krummel, Simon O’Doherty,
Dickon Young, Kieran M. Stanley, Paul J. Fraser, Christina M. Harth, Peter K.
Salameh, Ray F. Weiss, Ronald G. Prinn, Jooil Kim, Hyeri Park, Sunyoung Park
& Matt Rigby. Communications Earth &
Environment. volume 5, Article number: 783. December 21, 2024. Emissions of HFC-23
do not reflect commitments made under the Kigali Amendment | Communications
Earth & Environment
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