The Chemours Company. Regulations focused on combating climate change, at the global, regional, national, and even state levels, are resulting in a transition of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (RAC) industry towards lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant solutions. At the international level, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol has laid out the framework for a global phase-down of HFC refrigerants, which is defined on a GWP-weighted basis.
Varying starting baselines and step-down schedules have been set up for different country groupings. The end result of this is that participating countries will have to reduce the GWP-weighted basis of their HFC/HCFC consumption levels down to 15 to 20% of their established baselines. To date, this amendment has been ratified by over 60 countries, and came into force on 1st January 2019. Innovative new refrigerants such as hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) have been developed, which have dramatically lower GWP than HFCs. These, and other alternatives (e.g. Hydrocarbons [HCs], Blends, etc.) however, have varying degrees of flammability.
