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The HFC imperative: essential action for global climate protection

The Montreal Protocol has been extremely successful in enabling the phase-out of ozone depleting substances (ODS). As a result of these phase-outs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have been commercialized as substitutes for ODS. The HFCs being used as ODS substitutes are powerful greenhouse gases (GHG) with global-warming potentials (GWP) hundreds to thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide (CO2). Recent scientific evidence indicates that GWP-weighted HFC emissions alone could equate to as much as 45% of CO2 emissions by 2050, thus eclipsing efforts to redress global warming.

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