China will contribute more to global efforts to protect the ozone
layer by developing and producing substitutes for the ozone
depleting substance (ODS), which is widely used in manufacturing.
On
Saturday China's State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) opened the
Industrial Park for Implementation of International Environmental
Conventions, which will house about a dozen producers of
substitutes for ODS within two years.
It
is the first such park in the world, SEPA Director Xie Zhenhua
says, adding that the country must take measures to rapidly phase
out ODS.
China ratified the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the
Ozone Layer in 1991, which aimed to eventually halt the use of ODSs
such as chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and halon.
China has been phasing-out ODS since then, and has decided to
completely ban the production and consumption of ODS by 2010, Xie
says.
However, China has made little progress in the production of ODS
substitutes and still depends on imports of ODS substitutes.
The SEPA official attributed the low level of domestically-made ODS
substitutes to an executive committee of the Montreal Protocol
Multilateral Fund, which has failed to support developing countries
in the past decade in developing substitute technology and products
while phasing out ODS.
Urged by the Chinese government, the committee later allowed China
to use part of its grant to develop ODS substitute technology and
products, Xie says.
One third of the US$336 million MLF grant will be used to support
the construction of new enterprises for substitute production.
The industrial park is located in Langfang Development Zone which
is southeast of Beijing. The park will be given US$60 million of
the MLF grant, about half of the total investment, to produce
substitutes for halon, CFC, solvent and vesicant.
( June 17, 2002)