Brussels, 23/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Unilever, three world leaders in food and soft drinks, publicly promised on Tuesday to phase out HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) in their refrigeration equipment. This initiative was hailed by Greenpeace and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Greenpeace, which has long denounced the part that HFCs play in climate change - HFCs are far more potent for global warming than the greenhouse gas CO2 - seized this opportunity to call on governments to: - ban the use of HFCs or, when there are no immediate alternative products, to ban the use within 5 years from now at the latest; - tax the use of HFCs until they are eliminated, the tax being based on their potential for global warming. The environmental protection organisation also calls on the parties to the Montreal Protocol to stop funding HFC projects through the Multilateral Fund. Governments are invited to establish a compensatory fund into which HFC-producers pay, to compensate for environmental and human health cost arising from the extensive use of HFCs. The EU is called upon by Greenpeace to introduce immediate phase-out dates for HFCs in all applications in its proposed Fluorinated Gases Regulation.