Obama Not Seeking Quick Climate Action Under Ozone Treaty

After a brief but lively internal debate, the Obama administration has decided not to seek an immediate phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFC’s), a potent group of climate-warming gases, under a treaty aimed at protecting the ozone layer. A number of lawmakers, foreign governments and environmental advocates had urged the administration to offer an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty on ozone-depleting substances, calling for the rapid elimination of HFC’s. Some officials at the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency had pushed for such a course, but the White House decided on a more moderate approach to give it negotiating room in upcoming rounds of climate and environmental talks. HFC’s are used as refrigerants in air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers, as well as in some fire-fighting foams. They are sometimes referred to as “super-greenhouse gases” because they are hundreds or even thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide, molecule for molecule, in heating the atmosphere...NYTimes