Matt Rigby

It is now vital that we find out which industries are responsible for the new emissions, if the emissions are due to the manufacture and use of products such as foams, it is possible that we have only seen part of the total amount of CFC-11 that was produced. The remainder could be locked up in buildings and chillers and will ultimately be released to the atmosphere over the coming decades.

CFC-11 was used primarily in foam blowing, so we looked at estimates of the amount of CFC-11 that could be locked up in insulating foams in buildings or refrigerators that were made before 2010, but the quantities were far too small to explain the recent rise, the most likely explanation is that new production has taken place, at least prior to the end of 2017, which is the period covered in our work.