EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
Margaret Molefe of DEFF presented on how we’ve been
preparing for the Kigali Amendment.
waiting for the United Nations (UN)
to accept our proposal – which also
prompted this workshop to ensure that
we are ready for the next steps.
“Together we can find innovative
approaches and meet the challenges
of putting the Kigali Amendment into
action!” said Obed Baloyi, DEFF chief
director: chemicals management, in his
invitation to stakeholders.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
After the introductions and discussing
the workshop objectives, Baloyi handed
over to Natasha Kochova from UNIDO,
who travelled all the way from North
Macedonia for the event.
Kochova was tasked with giving an
overview of the Kigali Amendment, the
HFC phase-down and the enabling
activities for South Africa.
She started with some background
to the singing of the Montreal Protocol
COLD LINK AFRICA •
SEPTEMBER 2019
Grant Laidlaw of ACRA and SAIRAC gave industry insight into
where we are currently.
(which interestingly was the first treaty
in the history of the United Nations to
achieve universal ratification, being
signed by all the countries in the world).
She spoke about the ozone layer
depletion, giving more background
on why refrigerants are being phased
out and down. Kochova reported that
the phase-out of HCFCs has led to an
increase in HFCs – which is currently being
phased-down.
Her presentation covered the global
warming potential (GWP) values of
various refrigerants and refrigerant
blends, highlighting which sectors use
HFC and touching on South Africa’s HFC
consumption. She reported that Africa
consumes predominantly pure HFCs while
many other countries seem to favour HFC
blends rather.
It is reported that there are an
estimated 3 billion refrigeration and air
Peder Gabrielsen of the European Environment Agency
spoke about data collection and reporting.
conditioning (RAC) systems operating
globally, which is why the Kigali
Amendment is so important to assist in the
HFC phase-down.
Kochova walked workshop participants
through the HFC phase-down schedule
for article 5, group 1 countries – which
is where South Africa falls. Our freeze
year is 2024 and after that there will be a
gradual step-down. “By the late 2040s, no
countries are expected to consume more
than 15-20% of their respective baselines,”
she confirmed.
She showed a slide on the difference
the Kigali would make in terms of the
impact on climate, drawing a picture of
business as usual vs the Kigali amendment
changes. Not only would compliance
to the Kigali Amendment save 80 billion
metric tonnes of CO 2 emissions, it would
also have a drastic impact on projected
climate change temperature changes.
Kochova also shared some examples
on how to reduce F-Gas emissions.
(F-Gases refer to fluorinated gases,
which include HFCs, which are used as
refrigerants and in aerosols, foams and
fire extinguishers.) These include things
like leak testing, switching to lower GWP
alternatives, training and certification,
awareness-raising activities, and using and
developing F-gas-free technologies.
She then looked in more detail
at South Africa’s HCFC and HFC
consumption, noting that the commercial
refrigeration sector uses the most HFCs.
(Note that because of the fact that we
didn’t previously have a tariff heading
specific for all HFCs, the numbers for our
consumption cannot be determined
accurately at this point.)
The Kigali Amendment obligations were
discussed next and Kochova mentioned
that trade with parties that have not
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