Nigeria builds first Ozone village in Africa

[ozoneorbit]

Abuja/Nairobi, 19 August 2009- The Nigerian Government is building an
Ozone village to serve as a technology development.
The announcement was made by the Nigerian Federal Minster of
Environment, John Ode at the opening of the 4 days ODS Officers
Network (ODSONET) Joint meeting, which is being held in Abuja,
Nigeria.
The village is located in Ogun State. As part of this project, some
locally fabricated prototype Ozone friendly machines have been
developed. The machines include a box of foaming machines, CFC
recovery and recycling machine and hydrocarbon refrigerant production
machine.
The box is said to be globally competitive and the initiative will be
presented to the Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol to
consider the Hydro carbon production machine as a pilot demonstration
project to be considered under the HCFC programme.
The Montreal Protocol requires countries to also start freeze the
consumption of hydro fluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 1st January, 2013 and
some countries have already started restricting the importation of
HCFCs to enable them meet the 2013 target.
The Head of Paris-based UNEP OzonAction Branch, Rajendra Shende said:
“HCFCs have a high potential of global warming. Unlike for the CFCs
where the phase out plans were only meant to address the ozone
depleting potential, we now want to also consider the value added to
the mitigation of the climate change. In phase out the HCFC we will
also be counting how much global warming potential we will help
reduce”.
Judging from past experience in CFC phase out, it is likely that there
will be an influx in import of equipment using HCFCs towards African
countries as other parts of the world will be grappling to get rid of
there unwanted uses.
“This will surely increase to demand in HCFC making it difficult to
many countries to meet their obligation. Most countries present here
are enforcing their ODS Regulations which controls importation of ODS
including HCFC. But I can assure you that regulations alone will not
help if they are not backed up with a good and well funded and
assisted phase-out Programme” Mr. Shende added.
The ongoing meeting is meant to provide a platform for Ozone Officers
to compare note on the measures taken in the past years and draw the
lessons learnt and in a few specific case still needing readjustment.
It is expected that this Joint meeting, which also brings together
journalists from different parts of Africa, would allow countries in
the region to exchange views on the process for the development of
their respective HCFC Management Plans.
Note to editors:

Hydro chlorofluorocarbons, known as HCFCs are ozone depleting
substances (ODS) that are used mostly as refrigerants or foam blowing
agents.
For More Information Please Contact: Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson,
Office of the Executive Director, on Tel: +254 20 762 3084; Mobile:
+254 733 632 755, E-mail: Nick.N...@unep.org or Angele Luh-Sy,
Regional Information Officer, on Tel: 254 20 762 4292, Mobile: 254 722
429 770, E-mail: Angel...@unep.org