China’s war on air pollution
MARIT STINUS-CABUGON
THE Chinese government closed thousands of polluting factories and shut down coal-fired power plants late last year in order to meet the targets of its 2013-2017 Air Pollution Action Plan. The action plan was hatched in 2013 when China faced its worst air pollution ever. Consequently, thousands of government officials who failed to enforce environmental laws “are being held accountable for environmental damage,” China Daily reported on July 9.
Considering the scale and intensity of the campaign against polluters, it comes as a shock that the recent “mysterious source” of banned ozone-depleting substance CFC-11 turned out to be China. China officially stopped using and producing this chemical in 2007. Yet, last May “scientists revealed that atmospheric levels of CFC-11 … were significantly higher than expected.”
“Emissions today are about the same as they were nearly 20 years ago,” Stephen Montzka of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the Xinhua news agency (May 17, 2018). The data has led scientists “to conclude that new illegal production and use of CFC-11 was occurring in East Asia,” the international NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) wrote in its report on CFC-11 illegal production and use in China, “Blowing it” (July 9, 2018).
The EIA set out to find the source or sources of these “rogue emissions.” Posing as buyers, EIA’s “undercover agents” found that 18 of 21 companies that they had identified through internet searches used the banned CFC-11 or produced the substance themselves.
CFC-11, or trichlorofluoromethane, is a so-called blowing agent used in the manufacture of polyurethane foam. These foams “are the most versatile and are widely used for construction and building insulation as well as appliance insulation” such as refrigerators and freezers, refrigerated containers, water heaters and coolers, the EIA explains. China’s air pollution targets demanded energy efficiency. Insulation of buildings to prevent heat or coolness from escaping during winter or summer, respectively, has led to increased demand for polyurethane foam.
How come it took an undercover investigation by an international NGO to expose the violation of China’s official commitment to the Montreal Protocol, the international agreement from 1987 that spelled out the elimination of ozone depleting substances? Actually, Chinese authorities are aware of the continued production and use of CFC-11 but producers have successfully played hide and seek, sometimes in connivance with friendly local government officials. The latter alert the companies ahead of environmental inspections giving these companies sufficient lead time to shut down operations and let their workers hide. Some CFC-11 producers would “change locations frequently to avoid government inspections,” EIA learned.
Company representatives claimed that majority of an estimated 3,500 small- and medium-sized enterprises that manufacture polyurethane foam are using CFC-11 rather than the legal alternatives: CFC-11, while banned, is cheaper and better. The EIA concludes that the cost benefits of using the illegal CFC-11 are significant, obviously outweighing risks of being caught. This “ineffective monitoring and enforcement … are undermining the success of the Montreal Protocol.” Curiously, Hebei, where four of the CFC-11-using companies interviewed by EIA are located, is China’s most polluted province though it reportedly “beat” the targets of the Air Pollution Action Plan (China Dialogue, July 6).
While China’s central government may scoff at some international conventions such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is serious about its international commitments vis-à-vis climate change. Of course, reversing decades of environmental degradation resulting from a “growth-first development strategy” has become a necessity as the Chinese people themselves are paying with their health.
Climate change and ozone depletion are global environmental threats and thus, the rest of the world is benefiting from China’s resolve to reduce life-threatening emissions. While China’s demand for coal increased 0.3 percent in 2017 after two years of declining demand, “coal use in China remains below its 2013 peak,” according to the International Energy Agency (March 2018). Coal-fired power plants were closed in Beijing and elsewhere to bring down air pollution. China is today a world leader in renewable energy, especially solar power, with new capacity far outpacing that of other power-generating sources.
The bad news for the world is that global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to increase and “reached a historic high” in 2017. This “contrasts with the sharp reduction needed to meet the goals of the
Paris Agreement on Climate Change,” warns the International Energy Agency.
The continued production and use of CFC-11 is part of the problem as, aside from destroying the ozone layer, it also is a greenhouse gas “thousands of times more potent than CO2,” in the words of National Geographic (September 25, 2017).
The banning of CFC-11 and other ozone-depleting substances has been a significant contributor in the uphill battle against global warming. The Chinese government must take immediate action against what EIA calls “widespread and pervasive” use of CFC-11 in China’s rigid polyurethane foam insulation sector.
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