New York Times Reports: This little fix, solves a big problem…
Fixing air-conditioning is, let’s face it, not the most exciting solution to climate change. Perhaps for the same reason that remodeling a kitchen is more enticing than replacing a water heater, devising greener refrigerant chemicals will never make headlines like solar installations or electric cars do.
You just can’t take a great selfie with the inside of an air-conditioner. But fixing how we cool ourselves may also help fix the climate. New research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California indicates that adding improved efficiency in refrigeration and phasing out fluorinated gases used for cooling, as mandated by international agreement, could eliminate a full degree Celsius of warming by 2100. Given that the “business as usual” trajectory leads to 4 to 5 degrees Celsius of warming, that is shaving off a pretty big slice. Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, account for about 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but they can be thousands of times as potent than carbon dioxide and may account for up to 19 percent of emissions by 2050 if their manufacture continues unchecked.
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