Illegal production of CFC-11 in China has a climate impact equivalent to 16-20 coal power plants, the Environmental Investigation Agency estimates 
 
 By Megan Darby 
 
 Chinese factories are illegally producing chemicals that damage the ozone layer and the climate. 
 
 That was revealed in a survey of manufacturers carried out by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and corroborated by the New York Times on Monday. 
 
 The EIA identified eight companies in four provinces that were using CFC-11 in the production of plastic foams, which are most commonly used for building insulation. It is one of a group of chemicals banned under the 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. 
 
 “These and other well placed sources in the Chinese chemical industry strongly suggest that this is a wider practice,” said the agency’s Avipsa Mahapatra. 
 
 The green watchdog estimates up to 70% of Chinese rigid foam production uses CFC-11, which has a global warming effect as well as depleting ozone. By the EIA’s calculation, this illegal activity has a climate impact equivalent to 16-20 coal power stations. 
 
 Its findings go a long way to explain mysteriously high levels of the pollutant detected by air monitors, in data published in Nature last month. 
 
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 A factory owner in Xingfu, Shandong province, told the NYT he only found out CFC-11 was bad for the atmosphere last year – and it was cheaper than the substitutes. 
 
 As he spoke to the reporter, Zhang Wenbo was ordered by officials to close his refrigerator plant, in a crackdown across the town. Evidence of other illegal production hotspots has been passed to the Chinese authorities. 
 
 Climate Home News previously reported that the Montreal Protocol’s scientific assessment panel is due to examine rogue emissions and report to national representatives by the end of the year. 
 
 Production of chlorofluorocarbons, which were also used as coolants, was fully banned in developed countries from 1996. The developing world was given until 2010 to phase out usage, with financial support to switch to substitutes. 
 
 In the 1990s and early 2000s, a certain amount of black market activity was exposed, but the discovery of widespread illegal activity so long after the deadline shocked experts. 
 
 “It is outrageous that industrial climate-killers banned several years ago continue to be produced, used and emitted at this scale in an industry where better technology is easily available. This could undermine not just the slowly healing ozone but also the global efforts to battle climate change,” said Mahapatra. 
 
 Approved substitutes for CFC-11 also have a global warming effect, but it is much less strong. The intermediate option, HCFC-141b, has around a sixth the global warming potential, and cleaner options are available. 
 
 In 2016, countries agreed to amend the Montreal Protocol to tackle the climate impact of HFCs, which have replaced CFCs in many applications. Phasing them out could prevent up to 0.5C of warming this century, scientists estimate. 
 
 The latest exposé shows why the deal needs to have teeth, said Mahapatra. “EIA has been calling for tougher measures to deal with illegal production and trade. These findings prove once again that ​enforcement is not a luxury but necessary to the success of the Montreal Protocol.” 
 
 Republish this article ||||| A mysterious surge in emissions of an illegal ozone-destroying chemical has been tracked down to plastic foam manufacturers in China, according to an on-the-ground investigation published on Monday. 
 
 The chemical, trichlorofluoromethane or CFC-11, has been banned around the world since 2010 and is a potent destroyer of ozone, which protects life on Earth from UV radiation, and strong greenhouse gas. A shock rise in the gas in recent years was revealed by atmospheric scientists in May, but they could only narrow the source to somewhere in East Asia. 
 
 The Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organisation, has now identified widespread use of CFC-11 factories in China that make insulating foams. The EIA’s investigators identified factories that sold the chemicals needed for foam-making, then contacted and visited them. 
 
 “We were dumbfounded when out of 21 companies, 18 of them across China confirmed use of CFC-11, while acknowledging the illegality and being very blase about its use,” said Avipsa Mahapatra at the EIA. Furthermore, the companies said the use of CFC-11 was rife in the sector. “It was very clear. These companies, again and again, told us everybody else does this,” she said. 
 
 China is a major producer of the rigid polyurethane foams involved and the EIA calculates that if the illegal use of CFC-11 is pervasive in the 3,500 small- and medium-sized companies that make up the sector, then this would explain the surge. Without action, the CFC-11 emissions would delay the recovery of the planet’s ozone hole by a decade, scientists estimate. 
 
 “We didn’t know what on Earth someone would be using CFC-11 for – well, here’s one answer and that’s a surprise,” said Steve Montzka at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Colorado, whose team revealed the surge. “Despite efforts to get rid of this activity, it continues.” 
 
 He praised the EIA work, but cautioned that CFC-11 might be also produced by other activities and that this should not be ruled out: “If this one issue is targeted within China, we want to be sure that will take care of the problem.” New atmospheric measurements in east Asia should narrow down the total amount of CFC-11 being leaked and any hotspot locations in the next nine months, he said. 
 
 The EIA’s evidence has been passed to the Chinese government, which has already inspected and taken samples from some sites, and to officials at the Montreal Protocol (MP), the treaty that phased out ozone-killing chemicals. An MP working group is meeting in Vienna on 11 July and will consider the next steps. 
 
 “This week will be a critical moment for dialogue, resolve and action to ensure any illegal activities are fully investigated and urgently halted,” said Erik Solheim, the head of UN Environment, which hosts the MP. He said the EIA evidence was part of a wider body of scientific investigation taking place. 
 
 PU foams are used mainly as insulation in buildings, either sprayed into cavities or applied as solid panels, and are in high demand due to China’s construction boom. CFC-11 is easy to produce and $150 (£113) a tonne cheaper than the ozone-friendly alternative, according to the companies to which the EIA investigators spoke. The penalty in China for its use is a fine. 
 
 “The profit margins were very high, the demand was high and the risks were very low,” said Mahapatra. “That enabled these companies to use it so blatantly and is why we think this is so pervasive.” 
 
 A representative of one company, Aoyang Chemical Co, in Dacheng, Hebei province, told the EIA that 99% of its foams used CFC-11, bought from “shady and hidden” factories in Inner Mongolia. Another, from the nearby Wan Fu Chemical Co, said it was easy to avoid inspections: “When the municipal environmental bureau runs a check, our local officers would call me and tell me to shut down my factory. Our workers just gather and hide together.” 
 
 The EIA’s findings are supported by official Chinese government documents, with a 2016 report from environmental officials in Shandong province, a key region for foam production, stating: “There is still a large volume of illegally produced CFC-11 being used in the foam industry” and that its production is “highly concealed”. Other documents from Shandong showed one factory alone to have been producing 1,100 tonnes of CFC-11 in a year. 
 
 The EIA report acknowledges significant uncertainties in its calculation but believes it has been conservative in estimating 10,000-12,000 tonnes a year of CFC-11 leaking into the atmosphere from foam-making in China from 2012-17. The scientific study that revealed the surge estimated emissions between 8,000 and 18,000 tonnes over the same period.
– Across the world, someone has been illegally producing an ozone-destroying gas banned more than 30 years ago. Now, investigators and the New York Times may have pinpointed the culprit behind the CFC-11 chlorofluorocarbon: factories making foam insulation in remote parts of China. Putting CFC-11 in the insulation, which is used in buildings and refrigerators, isn't as costly as legal alternatives, and some factory owners were surprisingly frank with the Times about their usage. "Of course, we chose the cheaper foam agent," one factory owner, whose plant has since been shut down, says. "That's how we survived." The Environmental Investigation Agency, an independent watchdog, says it found at least eight factories in China using CFC-11 to make foam. The EIA estimates up to 70% of foam production there uses the chemical, per Climate Home News. An expert tells the Times that factories using CFC-11, a violation of 1987's Montreal Protocol, are often smaller operations (some don't even have names) that move around rural outposts to avoid detection; if they do get caught, they simply shrug and pay any fines, if they're not shut down. A study published in Nature in May stressed the issues that this unexpected jump in CFC-11 emissions could pose, namely pushing back the full recovery of the ozone layer by at least 10 years (the target date was originally for the middle of this century). The head of the UN's Environment Program tells the Times that the renewed CFC-11 production is "an environment crime" that requires immediate action. "We have to dig deeper," Erik Solheim says in a statement. "Based on the scale of detected emissions, there is good reason to believe the problem extends beyond these uncovered cases." (In other news, researchers see a controversial way to help the planet.)