Ratification of the Kigali amendment, which phases down hydrofluorocarbons, marks a rare bipartisan win on climate change.
Excerpt from this Washington Post story:
With broad bipartisan support, the Senate on Wednesday ratified by a 69-27 vote a global treaty that would sharply limit the emissions of super-pollutants that frequently leak from air conditioners and other types of refrigeration.
The treaty — known as the Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol — compels countries to phase out the use of the potent hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are hundreds to thousands of times as powerful as carbon dioxide in speeding up climate change.
The United States became the 137th country to ratify the amendment — and negotiators said the move would encourage the remaining nations to follow suit. The earlier Montreal Protocol clamped down on the production of ozone-depleting substances.
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry, who was in the Rwandan capital of Kigali when the amendment was negotiated, said the Senate vote “was a decade in the making and a profound victory for the climate and the American economy.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that ratifying the Kigali Amendment and adopting the Inflation Reduction Act was “the strongest one-two punch against climate change any Congress has ever taken.”
He said the treaty would “reduce global temperatures by about half a degree Celsius by the end of this century, a little talked about fact with very significant impact.” That reduction equals about 1 degree Fahrenheit.