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Earth Science

Scientists Call Out Rogue Emissions From China at Global Ozone Summit (nature.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Efforts to curb emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas commonly produced as a by-product of refrigerant manufacture might be falling short, and it seems eastern China is a major culprit. Nature: The hydrofluorocarbon gas, HFC-23, is around 14,700 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at warming the globe and has long been the subject of national and international climate-change mitigation efforts. Those efforts gained new traction nearly a decade ago when China and India -- the world's largest producers of the chemical -- agreed to dial down its emissions. New research, however, confirms that emissions continued to rise in subsequent years, and an analysis of data from atmospheric-monitoring stations suggests that factories in eastern China are responsible for nearly half of the total.

The rogue emissions are one of several air-pollution sources under discussion at the latest meeting of the Montreal Protocol, held in Nairobi, Kenya, this week. Signed in 1987, the Montreal Protocol is generally considered the most effective international environmental treaty in history, having halted the destruction of the ozone layer while also slowing down global warming. But scientists have often played a role, scanning the atmosphere for chemicals, such as ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that governments have agreed to phase out. "Science has been instrumental in evaluating compliance under the treaty," says Megan Lickley, a climate scientist at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
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Scientists Call Out Rogue Emissions From China at Global Ozone Summit More

Scientists Call Out Rogue Emissions From China at Global Ozone Summit

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  • You mean the South China Atmosphere? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Friday October 27, 2023 @03:47PM (#63959725)
    Nonsense. Using the term "emissions" implies that the gases in question have left the territory of China. Check your map. You'll see that all the affected atmosphere is inarguably behind an internationally recognized nine-dash line.
  • Apparently almost all rubbish going into the sea from rivers comes from Chinese rivers. They really donâ(TM)t care. They also do not care what the rest of the world thinks about them. If the obvious and visible pollution in their own rivers is of no concern then why care about invisible gases?
  • It's refreshing to see at least a few articles acknowledge where the actual pollution problem is these days.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      The US can't claim to not be a problem when it generates more pollution per capita than China.

      • The US can't claim to not be a problem when it generates more pollution per capita than China.

        I'd like to see some sources on that. I have little doubt that the USA produces more CO2 per capita than China but I have my doubts on this applying to plastics in the seas, or sulfur and NOx in the air. China certainly produces plenty of soot and smog, with a good sized portion of the air pollution in California being traceable back to China. CO2 emissions are a problem but I'd hardly call something necessary to sustain life on the planet as pollution.

        Pollution from the USA is a problem and I blame a la

    • Between China, India, and to a lesser extent the Philippines and Indonesia, that's the majority of the world's air and water pollution problems. Cleaning up these four countries would go a long way towards improving the world's water quality and maybe even reverse climate change.

  • "Rogue" implies they were unplanned, China never actually planned to meet emission goals they promised they would.

    Funny that we are over here in the west trying to eke out 1% CO2 improvements when it's all irrelevant in the face of whatever China and other third world countries do. Emission reduction on any significant scale is entirely up to them now.

  • That's ridiculous to draw light to, considering China's Co2 emissions alone exceed those of the entire western hemisphere and Europe combined... they've not slowed one bit in their output, but all the attention seems to be on how much the US is producing...

  • Are major problems. There's no doubt about it. And they're going to claim (not unreasonably) that the West is richer and more advanced so can afford to put solutions into place. Which the West certainly doesn't always do. It's also not unreasonable for China and India to insist on not being held back, to be allowed to become as advanced as the West.

    Although China's less likely to be vocal about it than India, as China certainly has caught up in a few areas.

    The obvious solution is to try and do a deal. The W

    • It's also not unreasonable for China and India to insist on not being held back, to be allowed to become as advanced as the West.

      They have so many more people though, if they follow the same recipe we did (which is what they are doing) then they will drown in their own pollution before they get there, and that is unreasonable.

      I agree with your comment, but with the above caveat...

    • China, at least, has its own nuclear technologies, and is surpassing those of western countries', where they are bogged down in regulation, politics, or have banned them altogether.
      Building them fast enough is a problem, and that is something no western country can help with since China leads the world in that area.

  • Can't have a story like this get any traction anywhere because the US needs to be blamed for everything.

  • It should not be surprising they have the most emissions from it. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20... [nrel.gov] has some interesting charts and this is 2020 data. Even in 2020 China was exporting to everyone while the US exported only to EU. Take a look at almost any appliance with refrigerant. Window AC, freezers, fridges... Almost all are made in China. The names you recognize as US companies just rebadge the Chinese made units.
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  • The west needs to quit counting on nations, esp. China, from caring about the environment.
    The ONLY way to stop this is for the west to slowly increase a tax rate on goods/services based on where the worst parts comes from.
    However, instead of looking at levels (other than a bottom level that EVERY NATION/State needs to be at), look at directions for 2 years running.
    While the important ones are GHG, obviously this IS a GHG (one of the worst) and needs to be considered a tax on parts/service.
    This is t

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