The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday held a sensitisation workshop for suppliers, importers and retailers of fridges and equipment on the phasing out of Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in fridges and equipment by 2030.
HCFCs are chemical compounds commonly used in the foam, refrigeration and air conditioning sector that destroy the protective ozone layer and contribute to climate change.
It was to also educate them on the phasing down of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to meet the Kigali Amendment under the Montreal Protocol by 2030.
The Montreal Protocol is a global agreement finalised in 1987 to protect the stratospheric ozone layer by phasing out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances.
Also, Kigali Amendment is an agreement between countries in 2016 to phase out HCFCs and phase down HFCs by 80 and 85 per cent by late 2040s.
Speaking at the workshop, the Director of Climate Change and Ozone Department of EPA, Mr Emmanuel Osae-Quansah, said Ghana had signed onto some international climate change treaties, such as the Montreal Protocols, and it was necessary they meet the obligations.
Having met their target of phasing out CFCs in 2010, he noted it was their obligation also to control the volume of HCFCs and HFCs that came into the country so they could be phased out by 2030.
“We cannot sit back and say we are phasing them down without doing anything to control HCFCs, we have issued quotas to eligible importers. You bring them in quantities that we have allowed you to bring in so that we will not exceed our maximum permissible limit so we will not be sanctioned by the international community,” he stated.
Mr Osae-Quansah said the workshop was to sensitise stakeholders on the Kigali Amendment, which controls the HFCs that replaced CFCs and HCFCs.
“Because of their high global warming potential, the protocol has agreed that to phase them down to 80 per cent, we will only have 20 per cent residual quantities to service of products that are on the market and when matured technologies, probably green technologies, are found the residual 20 per cent will be phased out,” the director highlighted.
He urged importers, suppliers, retailers and end users to try and get technologies that use fluids with the lowest practical Global Warming Potential, such as Ammonia, Hydrocarbons, Carbon dioxide and Fluorocarbons.
An Engineering Consultant, Dr Kwame Owusu-Achaw, in his presentation, said some of this above gases, like hydrocarbons, are highly inflammable and therefore their use entails higher risk of fire.
“Since the synthetic refrigerants that the RAC industry has been used to not present any flammability risks, servicing technicians and the RAC industry in general now need to be given guidance on how to deal with flammable refrigerants and the new hazards they present,” he said.
Ghana’s consumption of HCF was in the servicing of refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) equipment, which were introduced into the country as transitional replacement for Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) following the phase-out of it under the Montreal Protocol in 2010.
BY CECILIA LAGBA YADA
