China and India last week announced plans to reduce emissions of ozone-depleting gases in coming years, focusing primarily on industrial materials.
     China's nine-year program addresses the use of ozone-depleting substances in cleaning agents used in 10 industries. China, one of the world's top greenhouse gas producers, will ban carbon tetrachloride by 2004 and methyl chloroform and chlorofluorocarbon CFC-113 by 2009 (Associated Press/South China Morning Post, 10 Aug).
     The effort will combine the resources of the Chinese government, the UN Development Program and special funding from the Montreal Protocol on Ozone-Depleting Substances. The Montreal Protocol gave China $5.2 million toward the initiative in March, while UNDP provided $9.6 million last year to help fund a $40 million plan to promote refrigerators that do not produce chlorofluorocarbons (Raymond Li, South China Morning Post, 10 Aug).
     China also has converted some power plants from coal to natural gas and started to fuel some cars with liquid natural gas (AP/South China Morning Post).
     India's plan, like China's, seeks to phase certain substances out over the next several years. Industrial use of chlorofluorocarbons will be banned after January 2003, but medical use will be excepted. Methyl bromide will be banned after January 2015, while hydrochlorofluorocarbons will be permitted until 2040.
     India's rules also call for registration and recordkeeping of the production, industrial use, import, export and storage of ozone-eating substances.
     India is also one of the world's leading producers of chlorofluorocarbons (Times of India, 7 Aug).