What are the main sources of Fluorinated Gas emissions?

Fluorinated gases are only created by humans and do not occur normally in nature. They are used mainly in industrial processes, let's take a look at where they are used:

Figure 1:Source: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (2008), EPA.

• Production of refrigeration/cooling systems, foams and aerosols:

  The creation and/or use of refrigerators, air conditioning systems, foams and aerosols are the main source of fluorinated gas emissions. They are the only type of greenhouse gas that is created and emitted solely through human activities and so we are directly responsible for their apperance in our atmosphere.

  What's good is that it is easy to reduce your emissions of these powerful greenhouse gases (high GWP gases) by simply not using or using less air conditioning (in the car, at home or work), refrigerators (if you have more than one), foam products (styrofoam cups/containers, foam packaging, foam based home insulation, etc.) and aerosols (hairspray, shaving cream, etc.)

  The fluorinated gases used in these types of products have an incredible impact on climate change. Not only do they trap much more heat than the other greenhouse gases but because they are man-made they take much longer to break down in the atmosphere. On top of this since there are no natural processes to remove these gases from the atmosphere, they will be around much longer than humans will.

To go back to the main page for the sources of emissions click here