International.
During the ATMOsphere America event in Chicago held in June 2016, René Desjardins of Environment Canada said his country is in the process of developing new regulatory measures to reduce HFC consumption through a combination of tapering and product-specific controls.
The provisions on the phase-down would apply to companies importing HFC bulk. Four sectors are targeted: refrigeration and air conditioning, vehicle air conditioning, foam and aerosol products.
Under the proposed regulation, product-specific controls would prohibit the import and manufacture of products or systems containing HFCs.
The proposed new regulation would ban the use of HFCs in certain refrigeration and air conditioning sectors for a specific year, similar to the approach taken by the EU's Fluorinated Gases Regulation and California's proposed strategy.
However, it sets higher GWP limits for most applications. For example, in centralized cooling and independent low-temperature cooling, it sets a limit of 1,500 for 2020.
Stakeholders still have the opportunity to comment on Canada's proposed regulation, Desjardins said.
For his part, Agustín Sánchez, from Mexico's Ozone Protection Unit, presented the country's HFC phase-out strategy, arguing that the best way to eliminate HFCs is to control their production and consumption.
Mexico passed a comprehensive Climate Change Law in 2012, which sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in 2020 and by 50% by 2050, taking the year 2000 as the baseline.
"The main obstacles to the elimination of HFCs are the lack of availability of alternatives, the lack of capacity in the service sector, the lack of funds, and resistance to change," Sanchez said.
