U.S. eyes ozone treaty to curb greenhouse gas

updated 6:13 p.m. ET April 30, 2009

UNITED NATIONS - Momentum was building Thursday for a novel strategy by the Obama administration to deal in part with global warming: Use the existing U.N. treaty to fix the ozone hole as a way to enact mandatory reductions in a key greenhouse gas — not carbon dioxide but hydrofluorocarbons.

The Obama administration, in a major environmental policy shift, is leaning toward asking 195 nations that ratified the U.N. ozone treaty to do just that.

Two influential senators on Thursday sent President Barack Obama a letter urging him to do just that.

"Regulation of these gases could begin as soon as next year — significantly faster than any regulation of these potent greenhouse gases" via ongoing U.N. talks, wrote Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Kerry chairs the Foreign Relations Committee; Boxer the  Environment and Public Works Committee.

Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Adora Andy said that "we're considering this as an option," emphasizing that while a final decision has not been made it was accurate to describe this as the administration's "preferred option."

The change — the first U.S.-proposed mandatory global cut in greenhouse gases — would transform the ozone treaty into a strong tool for fighting global warming.

"Now it's going to be a climate treaty, with no ozone-depleting materials, if this goes forward," an EPA technical expert said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because a final decision is pending.

The expert said the 21-year-old ozone treaty known as the Montreal Protocol created virtually the entire market for hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, so including them in the treaty would take care of a problem of its own making.

It's uncertain how that would work in conjunction with the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, the world's climate treaty, which now regulates HFCs and was rejected by the Bush administration. Negotiations to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012, are to be concluded in December in Denmark.

The Montreal Protocol is widely viewed as one of the most successful environmental treaties because it essentially eliminated the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, blamed for damaging the ozone layer over Antarctica.

HFCs replaced CFCs
Because they do not affect the ozone layer, HFCs broadly replaced CFCs as coolants in everything from refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers to aerosol sprays, medical devices and semiconductors.

But experts say the solution to one problem is now worsening another.

As a result, the U.S. is calling HFCs "a significant and growing source of emissions" that could be eliminated more quickly in several ways, including amending the ozone treaty or creating "a legally distinct agreement" linked to the Montreal Protocol, says a March 27 State Department briefing paper presented at one of two recent meetings on the topic.

State Department officials told participants at one of last month's meetings that the United States wants to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase out the use of HFCs, a change praised by environmentalists. But there appear to be some interagency snags.

Though the State Department secured backing from the Pentagon and other agencies for amending the Montreal Protocol, some opposition remains within the administration, U.S. officials say. It is not clear if the proposal to eliminate HFCs will be submitted by next week, in time to be considered at a meeting in November by parties to the Montreal Protocol.

Proponents say eliminating HFCs would have an impact within our lifetimes. HFCs do most of their damage in their first 30 years in the atmosphere, unlike carbon dioxide which spreads its impact over a longer period of time.

"Retiring HFCs is our best hope of avoiding a near-term tipping point for irreversible climate change. It's an opportunity the world simply cannot afford to miss, and every year we delay action on HFCs reduces the benefit," said Alexander von Bismarck, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit watchdog group in Washington that first pitched the idea two years ago.

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