A climate science study published by the British “Nature” magazine on the 17th found that some older applications that are still in use may emit more HCFCs than previously estimated. These emissions may delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole and release 9 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. At present, it is believed that there are still many uncertainties in its emission levels and trends, and the new emissions previously discovered have not found a source.

Since the 1987 Montreal Protocol (hereinafter referred to as the Protocol) came into effect, scientists had expected the Antarctic ozone hole to return to its pre-depletion level in the early part of the second half of the 21st century. China joined the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in September 1989 and the Protocol in June 1991. In the past 30 years, it has achieved the compliance objectives of the various phases of the protocol as scheduled. As of May 2019, China ’s eliminated “ozone-depleting substances” ( ODS) accounted for more than half of the elimination in developing countries.

According to the definition of the protocol, most countries have agreed to stop using CFCs in production. However, the emissions of the products already put into use (CFC library) continue. These products include some refrigerators, air conditioning equipment and thermal insulation foam. This time, MIT researcher Megan Rickley and colleagues used a new statistical framework to evaluate the size of the CFC library and the corresponding emissions of CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113 the amount. The results show that these emissions are much higher than those shown in previous assessments and account for a large portion of the current estimated emissions of CFC-11 and CFC-12 (excluding the increased CFC-11 emissions due to resumption of production after 2012 ).

Although the protocol allows the continued use of CFC-113 in certain applications, the emission levels reported here exceed those reported in previous studies. The research team estimates that the current emissions from these reservoirs may delay the recovery of the ozone hole by six years and release 9 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The researchers believe that this latest result highlights the need to recycle and destroy CFC depots to reduce emissions. At the same time, it was recently discovered that CFC-11 emissions increased unexpectedly and the source was not clarified, indicating that it is necessary to quantify the emissions from these banks to accurately assess the scale of emissions caused by resumption of production.