Scientists discover the source of new CFC emissions
The following is a joint announcement from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the University of Bristol. Since 2013, annual emissions of a banned chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) have increased by nearly 8,000 tons from eastern China, according to new research published in Nature by an international team of scientists from the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Australia, and Switzerland. Last year it was reported that emissions of one of the most important ozone-depleting substances, CFC-11, had increased. This chemical was used primarily as a foaming agent for building insulation, refrigerators, and other consumer products. The surprise finding indicated that someone, somewhere was likely producing thousands of tons of CFC-11, despite a global phase-out since 2010 under the Montreal Protocol. “Through global monitoring networks such as the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Monitoring Division, scientists have been making measurements of CFCs in the atmosphere for...