Why did we land in this problem?

by Rajendra Shende in SPEECHES. Posted November 22, 2014

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This year is 325^th anniversary of the French revolution that changed the world, and India hopes to see in Paris next year in 2015, yet another revolution on climate change to reset the world clock towards climate resilient society.

Hon. Minister Javadekar spoke for High Level Segment of 26^th Meeting of the Montreal Protocol.-20 Nov 2014

Mr. president, Excellencies, Distinguish delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mr President, Please accept our heartiest felicitations on your election to the President of 26^th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol (MOP) on substances that deplete the Ozone Layer. The Montreal protocol on substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has been recognized as the most successful Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs) in the history. All countries of the world have ratified this landmark treaty with an endeavor to protect the planet from ill-effects for depletion of the Ozone layer.

This is 325^th anniversary of the French revolution that changed the world, and India hopes to see in Paris next year in 2015, yet another revolution on climate change to reset the world clock towards climate resilient society.

India has made huge contribution to the success of the Montreal Protocol and I would like to thank the bilateral and multilateral agencies, industries and NGOs –and not least –Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol. India successfully phased out CFCs and other oDS like CTC/CFC/Halon well in time and its phase out of HCFCs is proceeding with due diligence. We have already done this in foam . We have also helped other SAARC countries to come out of theses ODs.

We all know that all is not well with the Montreal Protocol .There are number of challenges still. We introduced HFCs as substitute for the CFCs and now for HCFCs.

HFCs are Green House Gases ( GHG) and its Global Warming Potentials ( GWP) are thousands of time greater than CO2-commonly known GHG.

The joint statement between our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and president Obama has emphasizes study the issue with priority and take appropriate action .

First of all we have to understand why did we land in this problem? We had help of thousands of experts, scientists who warned us on this for decades…then why we are in this problem? It is said that understanding the problem itself solves half of that problem!

Its mainly because developing countries followed developed countries in implementation of the Montreal Protocol. Developing countries were given technologies and financial assistance to adopt the alternatives which were mainly HFC-dependent.

So the questions we need to respond to : who are responsible to proliferation of HFCs today?

I would like to remind you all that, HFCs is not the issue of elites and scientists. It is the issue of common man, farmers and emerging middle class who need refrigeration and AC at affordable cost and also energy security.

HFCs is also the issue of poverty elimination. My government led by PM Modi is giving utmost priority to the needs of the poorest man in India. Hence it is not only emission of HFCs per se is the key problem, but energy use of the equipment and appliances using alternatives to HFCs is in fact more important.

Lot of time is being wasted in debating, but we still do not know the statistics of what efforts are being done and how HFC phase down is occurring in the developed countries. I was told that developed world is still increasing their HFC consumption, and production facilities are moving to the developing countries.

There are no specific offers of technology transfer, technology demonstrations and technology cooperation for the developing countries, except reports and presentations.

IPR, Patents, Confidentiality are the arguments still used by the developed countries for the issues that would lead us to climate disaster. What is the use of those confidentiality and IPR issues if all of us are getting drowned together due to global warming? Do not use cards so close to your chest, that you yourself cannot see your future!!

My suggestions and proposal

UNEP Technical and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) should produce reports indicating :

-Country wise production and consumption of HFCs over last 10 years. India does not want ‘estimates’. We need actual figures. That’s what we did in case of CFCs decades back.

India needs in every 29 states of India immediate demonstration projects for alternatives to HFCs in refrigeration and ACs to test the viability, affordability and energy efficiency.
We woud like the developed country industry and research institutes to initiate immediate collaboration to develop and improve the affordability of HFC alternatives.
The negotiations on HFCs should proceed on the principles of grace period ( CBRD) , financial assistance including that for research and development, technology transfer without clauses of confidentiality.

END