BRAZIL / CHLOROFLOROCARBONS (CFCs) (05:24)

5 December 2009

BRAZIL / CHLOROFLOROCARBONS (CFCs) (05:24)

Brazil is dealing with another climate change issue often ignored - CFC gasses. In the past, the gasses were thought to only harm the ozone, but scientists believe that they are much more harmful to the atmosphere then CO2. UNDP

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Full Script

STORY: BRAZIL / CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS
TRT: 5.24
SOURCE: UNDP
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / PORTUGUESE / NATS

DATELINE: OCTOBER 2009 / FILE

SHOTLIST:

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, NORTHERN BRAZIL
 
1. Arial shot, Brazil rain forest

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, CURITIBA, BRAZIL

2. Various shots, traffic
3. Various shots, buildings

OCTOBER 2009, NEW YORK

4. SOUNDBITE (English)Yannick Glemarec, Director, Environment Finance, UNDP: 
“When you speak about climate change, how much time is left? UNDP believes we must cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050.”

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

5. Various, CFC in lab
6. Med shot, CFC being extracted from gas container

OCTOBER 2009, NEW YORK

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Yannick Glemarec, Director, Environment Finance, UNDP: 
“Refrigerants contained in these fridges have a huge global warming potential. In addition to the ozone destruction potential they have a huge, huge global warming potential. If you take all the refrigerants contained in all the domestic appliances if you take all this ODS (ozone depleting substances) is about 18 giga ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, this three to four times the Kyoto protocol so you have a huge, huge time bomb there.”

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

8. Various shots, CFC in lab

OCTOBER 2009, NEW YORK

9. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Suely Carvalho, Chief, Montreal Protocol and Chemicals Unit, UNDP:
"UNDP is helping the ministry of environment to find solution to manage ozone depleting chemicals from the beginning when they produced to the end of their life cycle when they are disposed off. So we help the manufacturers with technology to make CFC free fridge, then we help the servicing technicians to collect the CFCs from fridges and now we are helping in finding solutions to finance those harmful chemicals to avoid being emitted to the atmosphere."

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

10. Various shots, streets 
11. Med shot, flag of Brazil

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, CURITIBA, BRAZIL

12. Various shots, manufacturing of refrigerators
13. Various shots, refrigerators on production line

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, SAO GONCAL, BRAZIL

14. Various shots, Indiai at work in her kitchen
15. Various shots, Indiai’s old refrigerator 
16. Various shots, new refrigerator being delivered 
17. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Indiai, a low income household receiving a new refrigerator:
“It is almost my birthday now on the 30th and there is already a new refrigerator! Thank you Lord!”
18. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Antônio Afonso Gomes, Ampla employee:  
“We would rather not send our team out every month to cut off the family’s energy supply. We prefer that the family consume less, but pays their energy bill on time.”
19. Various shots, Indiai’s old refrigerator being removed 
20. Wide shot, exterior CFC extraction workshop 
21. Various shots, extraction of CFC 
23. Various shots, CFC free compressors being stored in workshop

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, CURITIBA, BRAZIL

24. Various shots, refrigerator doors being carried 
25. Various shots, old refrigerators waiting for dismantling

FILE - SEPTEMBER 2009, BRASILIA. BRAZIL 
26. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Danilo Furtado, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Brazil:
“The Brazilian refrigerator replacement program on the large scale focused on replacing 10 million refrigerators in ten years has surpassed its initial.”

FILE – SEPTEMBER 2009, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

27. Wide shot, beach

STORYLINE:

Brazil, a land of great beauty and even greater potential.

It is an economic engine of Latin America and the fourth most populous democracy in the world.

But with this great potential comes an even greater danger as the specter of climate change looms large on the horizon.

SOUNDBITE (English)Yannick Glemarec, Director, Environment Finance, UNDP: 
“When you speak about climate change, how much time is left? UNDP believes we must cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050.”

In 1992, UNDP became involved in one of the most ambitious chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) elimination efforts in the world. After China, Brazil is the second largest consumer of hydro chlorofluorocarbon gas, better known as CFC.  CFCs are found primarily in refrigeration and other cooling devices, and virtually all homes in Brazil have one.

But CFCs are deadly to the environment.  One ton of CFC has the potential to warm the atmosphere 10,000 times more than one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2).

SOUNDBITE (English) Yannick Glemarec, Director, Environment Finance, UNDP: 
“Refrigerants contained in these fridges have a huge global warming potential. In addition to the ozone destruction potential they have a huge, huge global warming potential. If you take all the refrigerants contained in all the domestic appliances if you take all this ODS (ozone depleting substances) is about 18 giga ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, this three to four times the Kyoto protocol so you have a huge, huge time bomb there.”

Brazil, along with 195 other countries, signed on to the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which called for the total elimination of all CFCs. New laws in Brazil prohibited the manufacturing and import of CFC gasses and only allowed for industry to use existing CFCs. Whirlpool, like other appliance companies, had to adapt to the new reality.

UNDP worked with Whirlpool, Brazil’s largest appliance maker, in developing and manufacturing new appliances.

But this was only the beginning of the solution. Brazil’s millions of poor cannot afford a new refrigerator. 
And yet it is the poor who benefit the most from energy efficient CFC-free refrigeration. On average, a new refrigerator will cut their energy bills down by as much as twenty percent.

In 2000, Brazil passed a law requiring power distributors to increase energy efficiency in poor households. UNDP, working with the private sector, connected these power companies to manufacturers of new, CFC-free refrigerators. One of these power companies, AMPLA, quickly realized these new refrigerators were not only good for the environment but would ensure that low income customers would be able to pay their bills on time .

Indiai (Indjai) lives in a small house with her family of five in a poor neighborhood in the city of Sao Goncal. She is one of thousands of low income recipients of new refrigerators distributed by AMPLA through this program.

“It is almost my birthday now on the 30th and there is already a new refrigerator! Thank you Lord!” Indiai said after receiving the new fridge from Ampla.

SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Antônio Afonso Gomes, Ampla employee:  
“We would rather not send our team out every month to cut off the family’s energy supply. We prefer that the family consume less, but pays their energy bill on time.”

Indiai’s old refrigerator is just beginning its long journey. Its disposal is no simple matter since the trapped CFCs will eventually leak into the atmosphere if they are simply discarded in a landfill.

UNDP, working with the Government, supplies reclamation shops like this one with special recovery toolkits and the training needed to safely extract the CFC from the refrigerators’ compressor.

As a result of all these efforts, a new, greener economy is being developed in Brazil that takes advantage of opportunities like carbon financing and a brand new market for reclaimed CFCs.

With the possibility of new international agreements regulating climate change gasses on the horizon, Brazil, like other countries, has its work cut out.

With this project, which can be replicated in other countries, UNDP is helping Brazil connect to international financing needed to get this effort going. It is bringing in the technical know-how and training to make these projects sustainable.

And, perhaps most importantly, UNDP is using its vast network of public, private, international and local partners to construct a chain that begins with a new, CFC-free refrigerator for people like Indiai and her family, and ends with the total elimination of CFC-emissions in Brazil.

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