Countries sign on for accelerated plan to get rid of ozone depleting chemical

The Canadian Press

MONTREAL - International governments have banged out an agreement to shave a decade off a deadline to eliminate an ozone-depleting chemical.

Officials from close to 200 countries signed the deal on Friday night before the end of a week-long conference in Montreal on the topic of hydrochlorofluorocarbons - or HCFCs.

HCFCs, used in refrigeration equipment, air conditioners and foams, have been blamed for destroying the ozone layer.

"I don't think we're going to stumble across a silver bullet, but we've made great progress this week," Environment Minister John Baird told reporters at a news conference on Saturday.

"It's been a great week for international action to protect the ozone layer."

The agreement calls for developed nations to begin reducing production and consumption of HCFCs by 2010, and phase them out in 2020.

Meanwhile, developing countries will start cutting HCFCs in 2015 and eliminate the substance in 2030. Poorer nations will receive funds under the deal to help with the added costs of the shorter deadline.

The advanced dates speed up existing international obligations by 10 years.

"It's perhaps the most important breakthrough in an environmental negotiation process for at least five or six years, because it sets a very specific target with an ambitious timetable," said Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary and UN Environment Programme director, via video link from New York.

Steiner said HCFCs also act as potent greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Without the agreement, he said the production and use of HCFCs may have doubled by 2015, leading to the release of several billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Last week's conference came on the 20th anniversary of what is known as the Montreal Protocol, a United Nations agreement negotiated by 191 parties - 190 countries and the European Commission - to cut back on chemicals that deplete ozone.

A UN document says the Montreal Protocol led to worldwide reductions in the production of chlorofluorocarbons - or CFCs. In the 1990s, HCFCs became the less-damaging replacement for CFCs.

Baird said the Montreal Protocol and Friday's agreement are examples of how the international community can work together for the environment.

"We've got to learn from the success of the Montreal Protocol," he said. "The confidence and trust is clearly there from Canada, the United States, the European community . . . and that's the type of confidence we have to build up in other environmental accords."

Meanwhile, Jean Langlois of the Sierra Club of Canada called accelerating the elimination of HCFCs a "good thing," but criticized Canada for failing to respect the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto mandates strict greenhouse gas emission targets through 2012.

When it comes to the government's position on Kyoto, the country has failed to learn lessons from the Montreal Protocol, Langlois said.

He said the binding targets and timelines of the Montreal Protocol made it a success.

Industrialized nations were also required to act first, he added.

"We would love to see Mr. Baird get behind the Montreal Protocol kind of approach (for) climate change, and so far he has been absolutely unwilling to do that," Langlois said.

"We're quite dismayed that the (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper government, on the greenhouse gas front, is still trying to push for voluntary measures."