"It's not like there is a Montreal Protocol police."

May 18, 2018 6:47 AM

Why Is an Ozone-Destroying Chemical Coming Back, and How do We Stop It? A study in Nature finds that emissions of CFC-11, an ozone-depleting substance banned since 2010 under the Montreal Protocol, have been rising since 2012. The rogue emissions, possibly originating in east Asia, could delay the healing of the ozone layer by about a decade. Additional coverage in the NYT, WaPo, and Live Science.
posted by Cash4Lead (10 comments total)

I don't want to jump to any conclusions here, but there's a very large, very industrialised country in east Asia that has a track record of signing international agreements without any intention of abiding by them. Furthermore that country has very little internal oversight over its industry and has considerable problems enforcing compliance with even domestic laws, let alone international treaties.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:37 AM on May 18, 2018 [12 favorites]

I will be genuinely shocked if this isn't occurring in China.

It could well be happening in other places too! But 99.9999999% certain this is in China.
posted by Ahniya at 7:59 AM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

The real question, though, is: why? What's the market for making CFCs these days? Part of the reason the Montreal Protocol has been so successful is that substitutes for CFCs were readily available, so it's not clear where the demand is for this.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:03 AM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Pakistan are all possibles too. It may not even be just one.
posted by bonehead at 10:20 AM on May 18, 2018

The biggest lesson I've learned from the last two years is that apparently no problem is ever actually solved.
posted by imabanana at 10:21 AM on May 18, 2018 [12 favorites]

Aaand veering back to the Snow Crash timeline with Freon addicts. (And possibly Rat Things, who are still good puppers.)
posted by clew at 10:34 AM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

What's the market for making CFCs these days?

CFC-11 can be a byproduct of making Teflon, PVC, solvents, and other things, so it may be a manufacturing process issue rather than intentional use or manufacture of refrigerant or aerosol.

That said, you can certainly find what purports to be R-11 (CFC-11) for sale on Alibaba pretty easily. And systems using R-11 can be run at lower pressures than systems using replacement gases, and can be more energy-efficient (and thus cheaper to run). So.
posted by halation at 11:32 AM on May 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Goddamnit. This was one of those big environmental problems that we actually all got on board and seemed to be on its way to being a success story.

My fear in 2018 is we’ll end up with science deniers saying it’s not a problem and is all a hoax used to constrain businesses, and in six months we’ll see Trump signing an executive order to back out of the treaty and repeal any bans on CFC-11.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 1:53 PM on May 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

What if it's Bitcoiners using illegally manufactured CFC to squeeze extra efficiency from their cooling rigs?
posted by acb at 7:07 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

What if it's Bitcoiners using illegally manufactured CFC to squeeze extra efficiency from their cooling rigs?

In which case, much to no ones surprise, I will simply continue to be completely and totally out of evens as far as the human race goes.

something something Jesus take the wheel something
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:03 PM on May 18, 2018