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Comment by jefftk | Hacker News Reader

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jefftk·

CFCs are a hopeful counterexample

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also pretty much the only... and it was relatively easy as viable replacements were available

Sulphur dioxide emissions have improved a lot too. Acid rain is no longer an issue afaik.

That's true.

I am however very pessimistic about our (as a species) ability to deal with something that's even more long-term than i.e. CFCs or SO2.

* CFCs are used in relatively few products. Greenhouse gasses are integral to how we get food, build, make gadgets, move around, and keep the lights on. * There is considerable cheating on CFCs in China (source: widely reported)

> source: widely reported

> The findings suggest that China, which was thought to be the source of most of the rogue emissions of the chemical, CFC-11, has made strides in clamping down on illegal production of the gas. CFC-11 is used to make insulating foams.

-- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/climate/china-cfcs.html

CFC concentration in the atmosphere has only gone down since the Montreal treaty so it's still a success so far. (edit: I should have said "since 2000", the treaty was a phase-out to zero emissions by 1996)

What happened was that the rate of decline of CFC concentration slowed down[1] after 2012. This was an indication that there were new emitters. China then found the emitters and shut them down. [2]

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0106-2.epdf

[2] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/china-makes-arrests-shut...

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