After overnight negotiations, 197 nations signed a climate change deal announced Saturday morning to limit use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a greenhouse gas with more serious environmental effects than carbon emissions. HFCs are used in refrigeration and air conditioning technologies, and many climate scientists believe limiting their use is the single best way to slow climate change.
The deal, which is legally binding (unlike the recently ratified Paris climate change agreement), has a separate set of rules for developed and developing countries; the former will begin cutting HFC use in 2019, reaching an 85 percent cut of current use levels by 2036. The latter can continue expanding their HFC use until 2024 or 2028 and then must begin gradual cuts from that point forward.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
A Man on the Inside: Netflix comedy leaves you with a 'warm fuzzy feeling'The Week Recommends Charming series has a 'tenderness' that will 'sneak up' on you
-
Bread & Roses: an 'extraordinarily courageous' documentaryThe Week Recommends Sahra Mani's 'powerful' film examines the lives of three Afghan women under the Taliban
-
V13: a 'marvelous and terrifying' account of the Bataclan terror trialsThe Week Recommends Emmanuel Carrère's work is 'absolutely gripping'
-
Thirteen missing after Red Sea tourist boat sinksSpeed Read The vessel sank near the Egyptian coastal town of Marsa Alam
-
Global plastics summit starts as COP29 endsSpeed Read Negotiators gathering in South Korea seek an end to the world's plastic pollution crisis, though Trump's election may muddle the deal
-
What are Trump's plans for the climate?Today's big question Trump's America may be a lot less green
-
The bacterial consequences of hurricanesUnder the radar Floodwaters are microbial hotbeds
-
How safe are cruise ships in storms?The Explainer The vessels are always prepared
-
Biden visits Amazon, says climate legacy irreversibleSpeed Read Nobody can reverse America's 'clean energy revolution,' said the president, despite the incoming Trump administration's promises to dismantle climate policies
-
Climate change is threatening Florida's Key deerThe Explainer Questions remain as to how much effort should be put into saving the animals
-
Is Cop29 a 'waste of time'?Today's Big Question World leaders stay away as spectre of Donald Trump haunts flagship UN climate summit
