A few months ago, it has been reported that a mysterious source is expelling greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and it is depleting the earth's protective ozone layer faster than previously thought. Now, a new study has found that this dangerous gas release is primarily from China.
The study report published in the journal Nature suggested that China accounted for 40% to 60% of the global increase in trichlorofluoromethane or CFC-11 emissions between 2014 and 2017. Researchers in the study report revealed that major lethal gas emissions came from the northern provinces of China.
"The attribution of any remaining fraction of the global CFC-11 emission rise to other regions is limited by the sparsity of long-term measurements of sufficient frequency near potentially emissive regions. Several considerations suggest that the increase in CFC-11 emissions from eastern mainland China is likely to be the result of new production and use, which is inconsistent with the Montreal Protocol agreement to phase out global chlorofluorocarbon production by 2010," wrote the researchers in the study's abstract.
It should be noted that the Montreal Protocol is an agreement signed by countries under the guidance of the United Nations, and as per this agreement, these countries are responsible to control the production of greenhouse gases that damage the protective ozone layer. Last year, several reports revealed that Chinese factories had intentionally ignored the global ban of CFC-11, as they continued to make and use the chemical as it is a cheap material to produce foam insulation for refrigerators and buildings.
Another study report which was conducted earlier had also suggested that more than half of the carbon tetrachloride global emissions came from eastern China from 2009-2016.
However, there is also a piece of good news for environmentalists, as another study report released a few months back had revealed that the ozone layer is healing steadily. The research report claimed that the upper ozone layer above the Northern hemisphere will be healed by 2030, while the Antarctic ozone will completely disappear in 2060.
