India negotiates on mandatory change of refrigeration technology

India will be negotiating at the Montreal Protocol with one hand tied behind its back when the talks begin on Monday at Vienna. Countries gathering at Vienna are to decide how and when to phase down the use of refrigerant gases that are less damaging for the ozone holes than the ones used previously but add to global warming. The Montreal Protocol has traditionally dealt with gases and substances that damage the ozone

layer. But, with climate change becoming another urgent international concern, the need also arose to address gases are safe for the ozone layer and at the same time don't add to climate change. While the developed countries are already using these ozone layer-safe but climate changing refrigerants. India is largely supposed to adopt them in coming years. Developed countries, such as the US, want India and other developing countries to leap-frog straight to cleaner technologies, while they themselves slowly phase them down and also make the transition. This requires an amendment to the protocol, which is to be taken up at the Vienna meeting. With India seen as one of the fastest-growing global markets for air conditioning, the Indian government has, for long, assessed that the leap frog to a new set of gases would mark a considerable cost for its domestic industry and for the consumers if the decision is taken in haste. Additionally, with the safety of the alternatives not yet proven, the Indian government has been vary of the country being used as a testing ground for new products. "We are all for the transition to safer and cleaner options. Which is why we have made concrete proposal for the transition which is fair to developing countries," said a senior Indian official not willing to be named. "Our key concern is the safety of the alternatives being advocated in the context of Indian conditions - many of them are yet to be tested out - and the costs that the Indian industry and consequently the consumers would have to bear if the transition is done hastily without addressing the cost issues," he added.

But, recently, in the joint statement between India and the US, the two countries agreed that the decision to make this shift of technology will be put in place by end of 2016 before US President Barack Obama's term gets over. Along with the Paris climate change agreement, he had made this shift to new refrigerant technologies part of his personal agenda that he has advocated repeatedly internationally.

A few US-based companies hold intellectual property rights over some of the critical replacement options and a quick phase in of these new gases in large and growing consumer base such as India, mandated through international standards set by the Montreal Protocol could provide assured demand for the US-based companies. This has partly driven the US agenda, Indian government has previously assessed.

Recently, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in a joint analysis discovered that three companies, DuPont, Honeywell and Arkema had filed 107 product and application patents in India that would ensure that Indian manufacturers have to high license fee for alternatives to existing gases in the mobile air conditioning segment. The patent applications were filed "coinciding with the start of discussions under the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs," CSE noted.

Officials said, "India and the US have discussed the issue of costs and safety in the joint task force on the issue but we have not been able to convince our partner (the US) as yet to share the data on licensing and other costs that are involved. These are critical issues."

In the previous rounds of the protocol meeting, it was decided that the amendment to the Montreal Protocol would go through only after several issues of safety, intellectual property rights and economics of the alternatives were fully addressed and resolved.

But, limiting India's negotiating space, this caveat got knocked out in the Indo-US joint statement of June 2016 that was agreed upon by the two heads of states.

In past rounds of negotiations some of these concerns were addressed at the on-going meetings of the Montreal Protocol. India lost out on the possibility of being exempt from a strict regime of replacement of gases being enforced. This exemption was available for countries that have high ambient temperatures. While neighbouring country, Pakistan got on the provisional list of these exempted countries, India with even areas facing high temperatures, did not negotiate to get listed. Large number of middle-east countries that initially opposed the shift of technology, have now relatively turned agnostic to the negotiations after having achieved an exemption for themselves.

In the round starting on Monday the two critical issues of India's concern will be addressed. One, will the developed countries compensate for the high license fee and intellectual property rights for the replacement technology or not. Two, how the phase out of existing gases will be put in place for developed and developing countries.

India has won one concession though over past few sessions of the negotiations. It has ensured that any agreement on the technology change will have flexibility allowing countries to set their own strategies and set their own priorities on how different impacted sectors make the transition.