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Clean move

participants at the 10th Meeting of the Parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was held from November 16-24, 1998, in Cairo, Egypt, came up with recommendations to combat the substances that deplete the ozone layer. The delegates called for a reduction of certain chemicals that were earlier not in the phase-out list of the Montreal Protocol.

Substitutes for Chlorofluorocarbons ( cfc s) such as Hydro fluorocarbons ( hfc s) and Perfluorocarbons ( pfc s) were urged under the Montreal Protocol. But in the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the climate convention, these were actively discouraged. Recent studies reveal that emissions from cfc s and pfc s contribute to climate change.

Parties in Cairo agreed that the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel ( teap ) should provide relevant information on hfc s and pfc s to the climate convention secretariat by July 1999.

Twenty-nine countries and the European Commission called upon all bodies of the Montreal Protocol not to support the use of Hydrochlorofluoro-carbons ( hcfc s) when more environment-friendly alternatives are available. Parties observed that this environmental conundrum must be addressed as developing countries begin to phase-out cfc, and look for available substitutes.

teap was also asked to assess the quantity of cfc s that would be required by developing countries for the period 1999-2010, and the quantities which need to be produced and exported by developed countries.

An important decision of the 10th meeting was to list 25 applications in which ozone-depleting substances ( ods) may be used as

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