On 16 September 1987, the world came together in Montreal to protect the planet and its inhabitants from ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The agreement, the Montreal Protocol, went on to become the world’s most successful environmental treaty ever and is now marked each year by the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, and […]
Ten years ago, on 12 December 2015, 195 governments adopted the Paris Agreement at the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (CoP21). A decade on, it is time for both reflection and renewal.
It’s almost 100 years since Thomas Midgley Jr. first synthesised chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). It was 1928 and he was working for General Motors, looking for a safe refrigerant to avoid using flammable or toxic alternatives. General Motors and Dupont soon began producing ‘Freon’ chemicals, which quickly dominated the market for refrigerants and also found wide use […]
Saturday (22 March) is the 40-year anniversary of the signing of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, an achievement which has stood for four decades as an inspiration for multilateral environmental action. The Vienna Convention was established in response to scientific evidence that man-made chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were causing significant […]
As we approach the end of another year defined by record-breaking global temperatures and deadly natural disasters, turbo-charged by the escalating climate crisis, some 50,000 people have descended on Baku in Azerbaijan for the 29th annual UN Climate Change Conference (CoP29). For the third year in a row, EIA has looked into the systems being […]
Cutting emissions of superpollutants provides an opportunity to more efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions than a focus solely on carbon dioxide. In other words, it packs a larger punch.