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On June 8, 2013, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping of China issued a joint statement announcing that the two countries have agreed to work together to phase down the consumption and production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a potent greenhouse gas used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and industrial applications. While the two countries have (at least for now) sidestepped any collaborative measures to address the consumption and production of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- generally considered to be the most harmful of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases -- the Presidents’ statement asserts that a global phase down of HFCs could potentially reduce some 90 gigatons of CO2 equivalent by 2050, equal to roughly two years’ worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Presidents’ statement comes on the heels of a pair of federal court actions that likely mark the final demise of two high-profile private climate change litigations in the United States federal courts. On May 20, 2013, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in the case Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil, wherein the plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought to sue the defendants under a federal common law nuisance theory for the destruction of the village of Kivalina, Alaska by flooding allegedly caused by climate change. And on May 14, 2013, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal on res judicata grounds of the plaintiffs’ second lawsuit in Comer v. Murphy Oil, which sought to sue several alleged greenhouse gas emitters in tort for damages caused by Hurricane Katrina.
On June 8, 2013, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping of China issued a joint statement announcing that the two countries have agreed to work together to phase down the consumption and production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a potent greenhouse gas used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and industrial applications. While the two countries have (at least for now) sidestepped any collaborative measures to address the consumption and production of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- generally considered to be the most harmful of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases -- the Presidents’ statement asserts that a global phase down of HFCs could potentially reduce some 90 gigatons of CO2 equivalent by 2050, equal to roughly two years’ worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions.