India Urges Global Community To Tackle Menace Of HFCs

India has put forth a surprise proposal to increase the ambition of developed and developing nations to tackle the menace of Hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).

At a time when negotiators from around 200 countries are making efforts to strike a deal in order to phase-down the harmful refrigerant gas at the October 10-14 'Open Ended Working Group' meeting in the largest Rwandan city of Kigali, India has urged the international community to consider an early baseline year in order to bring down HFC consumption, saying that the developed countries should agree to an early "freeze year". India believes that the proposed move will help drastically reduce the consumption of the climate-damaging greenhouse gas.

Manoj Kumar Singh, the Joint Secretary at the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests, has explained that the baseline is the maximum quantity of HFCs consumed by a country in...