Udora Orizu in Abuja
The federal government thursday revealed that it has phased-out the use of ozone depleting substances such as Halons, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) Methyl Bromide and Carbon Tetrachloride in all sectors of the economy.
The Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, disclosed this during the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Programme (KCEP) project stakeholders’ inception workshop on “Improving Energy Efficiency in the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Cooling Sector” organised by the Federal Ministry of Environment in Keffi, Nasarawa State.
Abubakar said the government was able to achieve this through the use of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol.
According to him, “It is instructive to note that my ministry has been implementing the Montreal Protocol to phase out the use of ozone depleting substances in all sectors of our economy and over the years have achieved the protocol’s phase-out targets of 2010 for Halons, Chlorofluorocarbons, Methyl Bromite, Carbon Tetrachloride among others.”
He added that the same vigour used in the implementation of the HCFC Phase-out programme would be used in the phase-down of high Global Warming Potential, Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in line with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
In his welcome address, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. Bakari Wadinga, affirmed that cooling is essential to human health and prosperity and is becoming more important as the world urbanises.
Wadinga explained that the current cooling technologies such as refrigeration and air conditioning rely on human-made gases that are either ozone-depleting substances or high global warming potential gases, mainly Hydrofluorocarbons, which are almost 10,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing global warming.
He urged participants to actively participate at the workshop and come up with recommendations for successful implementation of the KCEP project on improving energy efficiency in the cooling sector.
