Increase in global emissions of HFC-23 despite near-total expected reductions
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s41467-019-13899-4.pdf
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Published version
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999.82 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Prinn, Ronald G.
Date Issued
January 2020
Journal
Nature communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Stanley, K.M., et al., "Increase in global emissions of HFC-23 despite near-total expected reductions." Nature communications 11, 1 (January 2020): no. 397 doi 10.1038/s41467-019-13899-4 ©2020 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, new controls are being implemented to reduce emissions of HFC-23 (CHF3), a by-product during the manufacture of HCFC-22 (CHClF2). Starting in 2015, China and India, who dominate global HCFC-22 production (75% in 2017), set out ambitious programs to reduce HFC-23 emissions. Here, we estimate that these measures should have seen global emissions drop by 87% between 2014 and 2017. Instead, atmospheric observations show that emissions have increased and in 2018 were higher than at any point in history (15.9 ±0.9Ggyr−1). Given the magnitude of the discrepancy between expected and observation-inferred emissions, it is likely that the reported reductions have not fully materialized or there may be substantial unreported production of HCFC-22, resulting in unaccounted-for HFC-23 by-product emissions. The difference between reported and observation-inferred estimates suggests that an additional ~309 Tg CO 2-equivalent emissions were added to the atmosphere between 2015 and 2017. ©2020
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13899-4
