Until recently, it looked like the depleted ozone layer protecting the
earth from harmful solar rays was on its way to being healed. Anthony
Saldhana, 35, a mechanic at a repair shop in downtown Mumbai, adds
air-conditioning refrigerant to a car.
But thanks in part to an explosion of demand for air-conditioners in hot
places like India and southern China — mostly relying on refrigerants
already banned in Europe and in the process of being phased out in the
United States — the ozone layer is proving very hard to repair.
Four months ago, scientists discovered that the “hole” created by the
world’s use of ozone-depleting gases — in aerosol spray cans, aging
refrigerators and old air-conditioners — had expanded again, stretching
once more to the record size of 2001.
An unusually cold Antarctic winter, rather than the rise in the use of
refrigerants, may have caused the sudden expansion, which covered an
area larger than North America.
But it has refocused attention on the ozone layer, which protects people
and other animals as well as vegetation from the sun’s harmful
ultraviolet rays. Now, the world’s atmospheric scientists are concerned
that the air-conditioning boom sweeping across Asia could lead to more
serious problems in the future.
As it turns out, the fastest-growing threat to the ozone layer can be
traced to people like Geeta Vittal, a resident of this hot, thriving
metropolis of 18 million, who simply wants to be cooler and can now
afford to make that dream a reality.
When her husband first proposed buying an air-conditioner eight years
ago, Mrs. Vittal opposed it as a wasteful luxury. But he bought it
anyway, and she liked it so much that when the Vittals moved last year
to a new apartment, Mrs. Vittal insisted that five air-conditioners be
installed before they moved in.
“All my friends have air-conditioners now,” she said. “Ten years ago, no
one did.”
Rising living standards throughout India and China, the world’s two most
populous countries and the fastest-growing major economies, have given a
lot more people the wherewithal to make their homes more comfortable.
The problem is that Mrs. Vittal’s air-conditioners — along with most
window units currently sold in the United States — use a refrigerant
called HCFC-22, which damages the ozone.
“The emissions of things like HCFC-22: we had thought they were
sufficiently in control, that we didn’t have to worry about them,” said
Joe Farman, the British geophysicist who discovered the ozone hole.
A recent technical study by the World Meteorological Organization and
the United Nations Environment Program found that the so-called ozone
“hole” over Antarctica — actually an area of unusually low ozone
concentrations — was mending more slowly than expected.
Scientists mostly blame chlorofluorocarbons, a chemical used in an early
form of refrigerant that they now realize was released into the
atmosphere in larger quantities than forecast. As a result, the
international agencies now say that injury to the Earth’s ozone layer
could take a quarter of a century longer to heal than predicted.
The fastest-growing offending gas that scientists say can be better
managed is HCFC-22. Nearly 200 diplomats will gather in September in
Montreal to determine how to speed the timetable for the elimination of
certain gases that threaten the ozone layer, in particular how to manage
HCFC-22. A deadline for proposals is March 15.
At a meeting in Washington on Feb. 16, Bush administration officials
said for the first time that they are considering four possible
proposals for a faster phaseout.
Industrial countries currently must phase out production of HCFC-22 by
2020 and are ahead of schedule, with the United States banning domestic
production in 2010. The Environmental Protection Agency is studying
whether to ban imports of the gas and sales of new products using the
gas by then as well.
By contrast, the Montreal Protocol, which governs the phaseout of
ozone-depleting chemicals, allows developing countries to continue using
HCFC-22 through 2040.
China in particular is stepping up exports to the United States of
air-conditioners using the chemical, often labeled as R22, especially
after the European Union finished phasing out the production and import
of such air-conditioners in 2004.
Pound for pound, HCFC-22 is only 5 percent as harmful to the ozone layer
as the chlorofluorocarbons it replaced. But it still inflicts damage,
especially when emitted in enormous quantities by China, now the world’s
dominant producer of window air-conditioners, and by India, a
fast-growing market and manufacturer.
The latest estimate from technical experts is that the chemical’s output
in developing countries is rising 20 percent to 35 percent each year and
could continue at that pace for years: slightly over 2 percent of Indian
households currently have air-conditioners, according to LG Electronics
of South Korea, a giant maker of air-conditioners.
HCFC-22 is cheaper to install than the latest ozone-safe chemicals,
which are harder and more expensive to manufacture. Lambert Kuijpers,
one of three co-chairmen of the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel
of the Montreal Protocol, said that production of the ozone-damaging gas
in the developing world is on track to increase more than fivefold in
the current decade. An accelerated phaseout of HCFC-22 “is the most
important” item on the agenda, he said.
But the trend in the developing world is working against an early
phaseout. India used to impose a 32 percent luxury tax on
air-conditioners but cut the tax in half over the last three years as
demand from the middle class rose. Competition has also shaved prices,
making air-conditioners much more affordable.
“There is a lot of pent-up demand,” said Prasanna Pahade, the senior
manager for corporate planning at Voltas Limited, the biggest Indian
manufacturer of air-conditioners.
In China, ownership soared to 87.2 air-conditioners per 100 urban
households in September, from 24.4 seven years earlier. The countryside,
home to two-thirds of the nation’s population, is poised for even
greater growth. In 2005, there were 6.4 air-conditioners per 100 rural
households, a 35-fold increase from a decade earlier.
Developing countries like China and India enjoy exemptions from global
environmental standards. The Kyoto Protocol, which governs emissions of
global-warming gases, is also lenient toward them, on the grounds that
industrialized countries have released the great bulk of the offending
gases and poorer countries should be allowed to catch up economically
before taking on additional environmental costs.
Some, like the Carrier Corporation, are calling for more equal
standards. But Carrier has already invested in the technology to use
newer chemicals and could profit from a faster phaseout of HCFC-22,
which would impose greater costs on rivals in developing countries.
A multilateral fund under the Montreal Protocol helps developing
countries convert to newer chemicals. The United States and Europe must
decide if they want to increase their contributions to that fund.
Indian and Chinese refrigerant companies are also eligible for hundreds
of millions of dollars a year under a relatively obscure United Nations
program, the Clean Development Mechanism. Manufacturers receive credits
for destroying a rare waste gas, produced while making HCFC-22, that is
among the most powerful global-warming gases known.
In many cases, the payments, aimed at encouraging reduction in gases
that contribute to climate change, are actually worth considerably more
than the cost of the HCFC-22 being produced.
The manufacture of more modern refrigerants does not qualify countries
for global-warming credits. So HCFC-22 producers in developing countries
have little incentive to switch to making newer refrigerants.
There is some progress in sight. The State Environmental Protection
Administration of China said last September that it planned to halt all
production and consumption of the more damaging chlorofluorocarbons by
July this year. Haier, a big Chinese manufacturer of air-conditioners,
said in a statement that it had voluntarily begun shipping to the United
States only models that use more advanced refrigerants, which do not
damage the ozone layer.
But huge challenges remain. The global auto industry has moved directly
from the use of chlorofluorocarbons to gases that do not hurt the ozone
layer, although they are powerful global-warming gases. Here in India,
car factories now install air-conditioning systems that use these modern
refrigerants.
But owners of older cars, as well as people who buy new cars without
air-conditioning and then decide they need it, still go to repair shops
to install air-conditioners that use the worst of the chlorofluorocarbons.
Nilesh Bothelo, the manager of a repair shop in downtown Mumbai, said
that a chlorofluorocarbon-based system was so much simpler and easier to
install that he charges just $600 for it. He charges twice as much for a
system using the modern refrigerant.
Indian chemical companies are happy to ship as much chlorofluorocarbons
as needed, Mr. Bothelo said. When asked what the chemical looks like, he
abruptly had a mechanic pour a little out of a battered metal tank onto
the oil-stained ground. The milky gas flowed toward the dirt, bounced
and then faded away, vanishing into the air.
“If it were something so bad,” Mr. Bothelo said, “they would not legally
sell it.”
(Por Keith Bradsher,
The N.Y.Times, 23/02/2007)