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It was hard to focus on any one policy in Congress’s enormous, year-end funding effort, but one deserves more press than it got at the time. That’s the bipartisan legislation that will reduce harmful refrigerants a major climate victory, and one that the NAM was instrumental in achieving, according to E&E News (subscription).
Good for climate: The legislation, which was co-sponsored by Republican Sen. John Kennedy (LA) and Democratic Sen. Tom Carper (DE), will help the U.S. avoid more greenhouse gas emissions every year than Germany produces in total, bringing the United States into alignment with a global deal called the Kigali Amendment. The Kigali Amendment seeks to phase down superheating pollutants like hydrofluorocarbons to prevent Earth’s temperatures from increasing by a half-degree Celsius by the end of the century.
Here s the other global climate deal Joe Biden plans to implement in his first days Print this article
The Paris pact isn’t the only global climate agreement President-elect Joe Biden plans to join during his first days in office.
Biden can, and likely will, also begin implementing a lesser-known global climate deal to restrict potent greenhouse gas refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. The Obama administration also helped negotiate that deal, known as the Kigali Amendment, which would set the United States and the world on a path to phase down HFCs over the next several decades.
The chemicals, used in refrigerators and air conditioners, are greenhouse gases thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide, though they remain in the atmosphere for a shorter time. If governments meet the goals of the Kigali agreement, it could avoid up to half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century, scientists have projected.