This coun­try has re­ceived US$543,259 in grant fund­ing to as­sist in im­ple­ment­ing na­tion­al oblig­a­tions un­der the first part of the Ki­gali Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan reg­u­lat­ing the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of ozone-de­plet­ing sub­stances.

This fund­ing is for the pe­ri­od 2023-2029.

In an in­ter­view with Busi­ness Guardian, man­ag­er of the Na­tion­al Ozone Unit, Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Dr Maris­sa Gowrie said grant fund­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col is pro­vid­ed by the mul­ti­lat­er­al fund of the Pro­to­col. Over the years through these funds T&T has been able to pro­vide train­ing to tech­ni­cians, ac­cess tools and equip­ment, sup­port for aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions, train­ing to reg­u­la­to­ry and bor­der con­trol agen­cies, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and up­grades to the pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive frame­work.

Dr Gowrie ex­plained the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col has had a tremen­dous ef­fect on aid­ing the world in ar­rest­ing the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the ozone lay­er. Coun­tries around the world made a land­mark de­ci­sion in Oc­to­ber 2016 to in­clude un­der its man­date chem­i­cals that were used as ozone-de­plet­ing al­ter­na­tives, but which have neg­a­tive ef­fects on the cli­mate, such hy­dro­flu­o­ro­car­bons (HFCs).

“T&T signed on to this amend­ment to the Pro­to­col, known as the Ki­gali Amend­ment, and as such in­cor­po­rates the cli­mate chal­lenge in­to the work of sav­ing the ozone lay­er,” Gowrie said.

She not­ed that these HFC gas­es, like oth­er gas­es un­der the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col, are con­trolled un­der a li­cens­ing sys­tem that is man­dat­ed by the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col and ad­min­is­tered na­tion­al­ly by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try- Trade Li­cens­ing Unit, the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals In­spec­torate and the Na­tion­al Ozone Unit (NOU).

Gowrie ex­plained that T&T’s im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Ki­gali Amend­ment be­gan on Jan­u­ary 1, 2024, and go­ing in­to 2025, all im­porters are re­mind­ed that the im­por­ta­tion of HFCs, such as all re­frig­er­ant and re­frig­er­a­tion and air con­di­tion­ing equip­ment and parts, re­quires an im­port li­cence pri­or to im­port is­sued by the Trade Li­cence Unit of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try.

Im­porters of HFCs, she said, must al­so pos­sess premis­es reg­is­tra­tion from the Pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals In­spec­torate for the stor­age of these gas­es if they are to be sold whole­sale.

Im­porters are al­so be re­mind­ed that:

1. A li­cence is re­quired be­fore im­port or ex­port of all re­frig­er­ants as well as, re­frig­er­a­tion and air con­di­tion­ing parts and equip­ment, which can be ob­tained from the Trade Li­cence Unit, Min­istry of Trade, and In­dus­try in ac­cor­dance with the Im­ports and Ex­ports Con­trol Reg­u­la­tions 1941, Le­gal No­tices No. 290 and 291 of 2014 and Le­gal No­tices No. 212 and 213 of 2022;

2. In ad­di­tion to this, for im­port or ex­port of all Hy­dro­car­bon (HC) re­frig­er­ants and HFC a li­cence is al­so re­quired from the Pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals In­spec­torate by the Pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals Act 1979 and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals Reg­u­la­tions 2007 of T&T;

3. 3. Im­port of all as­sem­bled equip­ment us­ing hy­drochlo­ro­flu­o­ro­car­bons (HCFCs) are not al­lowed in­to T&T;

4. Im­port of Methyl Bro­mide for non-quar­an­tine and pre-ship­ment use and Halon are not al­lowed in­to T&T;

5. Premis­es reg­is­tra­tion is re­quired for all chem­i­cals which are clas­si­fied as tox­ic chem­i­cals un­der the Pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals Act 1979 and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals Reg­u­la­tions 2007 of T&T in­clud­ing bu­tane and propane if sold by whole­sale, pack­aged, or used in man­u­fac­tur­ing;

6. On­ly quo­ta hold­ers will be grant­ed li­cences to im­port HCFC re­frig­er­ants which in­clude R22, R408, and R123. All oth­er HCFCs are not al­lowed, in­clud­ing R141B and R142B or mix­tures there­of, in­clud­ing poly­ols, used in foam man­u­fac­ture.

She said these con­trols great­ly as­sist this coun­try in main­tain­ing the na­tion­al oblig­a­tions of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col.

She al­so point­ed out that prop­er main­te­nance on a home air con­di­tion­ing sys­tem will keep it run­ning smooth­ly and pre­vent con­sum­ing ex­cess en­er­gy to cool one’s home.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, gen­er­al main­te­nance and pe­ri­od­ic clean­ing will save you from un­nec­es­sary costs as­so­ci­at­ed with your util­i­ty bill and ex­pen­sive re­pairs. It is rec­om­mend­ed that you have a pro­fes­sion­al­ly cer­ti­fied tech­ni­cian to do year­ly check-ups for your air con­di­tion­ing sys­tem; to eval­u­ate your sys­tem’s ef­fi­cien­cy and to check for gen­er­al wear and tear.”

Dr Gowrie stressed that chal­lenges still ex­ist about en­sur­ing that con­sumers make wise en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly choic­es in the pur­chase of re­frig­er­a­tion and air con­di­tion­ing equip­ment and en­gage tech­ni­cians who are pro­fes­sion­al­ly cer­ti­fied and prac­tice good re­frig­er­a­tion prac­tices.

“We must strive to be ozone friend­ly, which means tak­ing in­di­vid­ual ac­tion to re­duce and elim­i­nate im­pacts on the stratos­pher­ic ozone lay­er caused by the prod­ucts you buy, the ap­pli­ances and equip­ment that your house­hold or busi­ness use, or the man­u­fac­tur­ing process used by your com­pa­ny.

“Prod­ucts made with, or con­tain­ing, ozone-de­plet­ing sub­stances (ODS) such as CFCs, HCFCs, halons, methyl chlo­ro­form, and methyl bro­mide can con­tribute to ozone lay­er de­ple­tion. Al­ter­na­tives to these prod­ucts, which are al­so not harm­ful to the cli­mate, should be used.”

“We must al­so take the nec­es­sary steps to pro­tect our­selves from the harm­ful ul­tra­vi­o­let rays emit­ted by the sun, es­pe­cial­ly on a trop­i­cal is­land such as ours. Us­ing um­brel­las, long-sleeved cloth­ing, caps with brims, sun­glass­es, and sun­block with UV pro­tec­tion when go­ing in­to the sun pro­tects us from skin can­cer, eye cataracts, wrin­kling of the skin, and weak­en­ing of the im­mune sys­tem by shield­ing our­selves from UV rays,” Dr Gowrie added.

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les last week said re­duc­ing and phas­ing out these ozone-de­plet­ing sub­stances will re­duce rates of skin can­cer, cataracts, weak­ened im­mune sys­tems in hu­mans, and dam­age to ma­rine life and plant ecosys­tems due to ex­ces­sive UV ra­di­a­tion reach­ing the Earth’s sur­face.

She out­lined that this process is im­por­tant to the Min­istry’s role in plac­ing the en­vi­ron­ment at the cen­tre of so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment as per T&T’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy – Vi­sion 2030 and its com­mit­ment to the glob­al Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs).

The Na­tion­al Ozone Unit of T&T was ho­n­oured in 2007 for the work that it has done to pro­tect the ozone lay­er, and re­ceived the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col Im­ple­menters Award, in recog­ni­tion of this coun­try’s note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tions to­ward restora­tion of the Ozone Lay­er at the 20th An­niver­sary of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col Cel­e­bra­tions, on Mon­day Sep­tem­ber, 17, 2007 in Mon­tre­al Cana­da.