Disparate interests ranging from environmental activists to businesses and industry are lining up to support a first-of-its-kind deal between the US and China to phase out a chemical blamed for climate change.
Although it took most proponents by surprise, the deal was in the bag before President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at the California desert retreat where they announced it over the weekend. And for China, it came only after a change in financial incentives made it more lucrative to get on board than to continue holding out.
The thermometer was hitting 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) on a lush estate outside Palm Springs on Saturday when the White House said that Obama and Xi, the leaders of the world's two largest economies, had struck a deal showing China was getting serious about the warming of the planet.
The White House trumpeted it as an example of practical cooperation with the polluting superpower, a bright spot in a summit dominated by testier issues like cyberspying.
The idea is for the US and China to work together to use a decades-old ozone-protection treaty called the Montreal Protocol to phase out hydrofluorocarbons coolants that flow through refrigerators and air conditioners.
Hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs don't deplete the ozone layer, but they're potent greenhouse gases, far more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
Offering grand predictions, the White House and environmental groups said a global phasedown of HFCs could, by 2050, eliminate about two years' worth of greenhouse gas emissions compared with current levels.
Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, now the chair of the Center for American Progress, said it could avert almost a degree in Fahrenheit of warming temperatures by the end of the century.
The industry that relies on the coolant is on board, too. Francis Dietz of the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute said businesses want long-term predictability even if it means short-term costs to perfect replacements. Even DuPont Co., a major chemical manufacturer that makes HFCs, supports phasing them out and has been developing alternative products.
"It's a model for broader climate change initiatives," said Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who urged Obama before the summit to bring it up with the Chinese.
It was a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State John Kerry in April that set the process in motion, according to an administration official, who wasn't authorized to speak on the record and demanded anonymity.
