"HFC-23 emissions from chemical plants in eastern China and elsewhere likely violate an international climate agreement despite readily available pollution controls. Advocates are pressing for action."
"A climate super pollutant thousands of times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide is being released at a rate far higher than countries around the world have acknowledged, raising a fraught question: What are they going to do about it?
Elevated concentrations of a chemical known as trifluoromethane, or HFC-23, were detected at remote monitoring sites worldwide, according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment in late December. The study concluded that 40 percent of the emissions came from eastern China, suggesting the country may be violating an international climate agreement.
The pollution poses a critical test to the Montreal Protocol’s Kigali Amendment—a binding agreement designed to curb the release of HFC-23 and other hydrofluorocarbons—and to the more than 160 countries that ratified it. The HFC-23 problem also highlights the need for more robust monitoring of highly potent greenhouse gases at a time when U.S. support, which helps underwrite the existing global monitoring network, may be on the chopping block."
Phil McKenna and Lili Pike co-report for Inside Climate News and Foreign Policy May 21, 2025.
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