Cool coalition tackles hot problem

Unilever, Coca Cola and McDonalds have announced a phase-out of climate-killing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in their refrigeration equipment. Elsewhere, however, the widespread use of these chemicals continues to turn up the heat on the planet.

Greenpeace ran a powerful, global campaign which exposed the use of HFCs by Olympic sponsors Unilever, Coke, and McDonalds at the 2000 Green Olympics in Sydney. By the start of the games, all three companies had announced phase-out plans for damaging refrigeration technologies by the time of the 2004 Olympics – a promise now made good.

HFCs are a classic case of "out of the fire and into the frying pan". The chemicals were introduced to replace ozone-depleting CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). However, left unchecked HFCs will do as much harm to the climate by 2050 as traffic fumes from all the world's passenger cars.

Greenpeace has worked hard to highlight this madness. After consulting with scientists, Greenpeace found an old fridge factory, appealed to our supporters to pre-order enough units to finance a refit, helped build the market, and the new Greenfreeze refrigeration technology was born.

Now an astonishing 100 million refrigerators now use this technology which avoids the use of HFCs altogether. It is available in most major markets, with the exception of North America. Alarmingly, North American manufacturers not only continue to use HFCs, but lobbyists there are also trying to expand their use and to erode even the current ineffective regulation to limit the chemicals.

Only legislation will end the use of climate-wrecking HFCs. Governments should follow the progressive stance of Unilever, Coke and McDonalds and adopt an immediate phase-out of HFCs.