F-gas amendments flood in as MEPs prepare to vote
28th March 2023
EUROPE: As the European Parliament prepares to vote on revisions to the F-gas regulations, dozens of new last-minute amendments have been tabled by MEPs.
The vote, expected on Thursday, will have wide ranging impacts on the HVACR sector in Europe and beyond and implications for industrial, commercial and domestic end-users.
Many of the new amendments seek to address concerns of air conditioning, refrigeration and heat pump stakeholders over the speed of the HFC phase down and timetable for the product bans.
In an eleventh-hour statement, an alliance of 14 leading European and global associations representing the heating, cooling, refrigeration, foam insulation, hospitality, farming, agriculture and food distribution sectors have urged MEPs to adopt some of these amendments “to help ensure an effective F-gas phase down while maintaining the EU’s climate and energy security goals”.
The amendments in question have been tabled by a diversity of MEPs from 16 countries and across six political groups.
Amendments 172 and 185 basically seek to delay the three-year phase-down steps by three years, avoiding the big step-down in 2027. Amendment 185 is tabled by 87 MEPs and is shown in the table below. Amendment 172 tabled by Croatian MEP Ladislav Ilčić, is basically the same except it seeks an increased allowance on the initial 2024 to 2026 step of 45,701,077 tonnes CO2e.
The alliance of 14 insists that these amendments will ensure “the long-term ambition of the EU Commission and the 2050 carbon neutrality targets” that the industry supports. It also says that it will enables the necessary heat pump deployment to achieve the REPowerEU targets.
Other amendments backed by the alliance seek to delay the proposed restrictions on split systems and heat pumps, separating out some of the product types and capacities and pushing some of the bans back to 2029/2030.
The alliance also seeks the support of MEPs for an amendment to the Commission’s proposal to also ban the sale of spare parts to existing equipment which the alliance says would be contradictory to the EU circular economy objectives.
Russell Patten, director general of EPEE, one of the alliance members, told the Cooling Post: “What we’re asking is really not miracles. It’s just a few extra years to ensure that the transition out of HFCs can be done in a proper way.”
Significantly, many of the new amendments already have the support of over 80 MEPs.
Voting
While it was previously thought that a majority of MEPs were behind the revision proposals, there are claims that the no-voters have been gaining ground. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, the countries behind the PFAS ban proposals, are clearly in favour of the ENVI committee proposals. Insiders suggest that the Central and Eastern European member states, many of whom are behind the new amendments, are ranged against them and there are still a number of “don’t knows”.
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