How to accelerate the destruction of ODF waste - OEWG46 Side Event on the Climate and Ozone Protection Alliance:
Each year, approximately 1.5 Gt CO2-eq are released from improperly managed or disposed refrigerants. This corresponds to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 441 coal-fired power plants. Currently, neither the Montreal Protocol nor other international agreements address the challenge of accumulating ODS and HFC banks in old cooling equipment. The Climate and Ozone Protection Alliance (COPA) puts a spotlight on the topic. This side event at OEWG46 in Montreal organized by GIZ Proklima and UNIDO reflected on the important role of COPA as well as on the lessons learned and best practices after two years of its operation.
For two years, COPA has been advancing holistic solutions for lifecycle refrigerant management by combining financing, policy making, and expertise in recovery, reclamation, and destruction technologies with hands-on experience in the cooling sector. In the first part of the side event, speakers demonstrated how the Alliance increases knowledge, creates awareness, and contributes to securing sustainable financing solutions for a range of ODS and HFC banks management measures. Ellen Michel, Head of COPA Secretariat presented the COPA vision, activities, and a highlight video (link). Afterwards, Yunrui Zhou from UNIDO, introduced ODS/HFC Reclamation and Destruction Technologies, followed by Irene Papst (HEAT GmbH) who described the Policy Framework for the promotion of sustainable ODS/HFC banks management. The Financing Mechanisms to enable ODS/HFC banks management were presented by Laurant Guegan from Climalife.
After the presentations country representatives from Eqypt (Ezzat Lewis), Finland (Tapio Reinikainen), Tunisia (Youssef Hammami), Türkiye (Sezin Sönmez Erbas) and Japan (Makoto Kato) joined the speakers for a panel discussion. They shared which challenges they had to face as well as lessons learned for the preparation of national inventories of waste-controlled substances and the development of a national action plan.
