COPA Meet & Greet in Vienna

From Ayse and Jorge at Energy Changes:

We were delighted to welcome an international team from the Cooling and Ozone Protection Alliance Secretariat – all committed to better solutions to the challenge of super polluting refrigerant gases around the world. Bringing together agencies committed to climate protection and deeply knowledgeable about the plight that refrigerant gases pose for the environment resulted in interesting discussions about how to best make progress in this sector to benefit climate and people. We would like to very warmly thank COPA, GIZ, and UNIDO for visiting us and sharing their important progress in this crucial sector.

One of our highlights from the meet and greet was sharing a little bit of our work on refrigerant management on the ground. We know that Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is today already catalyzing action on this front and supporting innovative technology providers in their mission to operationalize Lifecycle Refrigerant Management (LRM), as well as Ozone Officers in their task to meet Montreal Procol targets. There are many refrigerant carbon projects currently in development utilizing the new financing mechanism offered by Article 6, although many are currently under wraps, including some of ours. We think that for now this hides the real impact and opportunity being achieved by Article 6, which is already transforming how some countries will approach LRM in the near future. Other carbon crediting standards are also making inroads, such as those represented in the voluntary carbon markets.

Here’s our own personal conclusion based on the discussion: Carbon finance can truly drive LRM, and we believe that collaboration between unique and valuable initiatives like COPA, country governments, organizations like GIZ, UNIDO, and UNDP, and private sector innovators is essential to achieve this. The challenge of environmentally responsible refrigerant management is solvable today with the tools at our disposal, and collaboration is the key that can unlock the toolbox.

The work we do from our Vienna office aims to do just this, both for refrigerant management and for other technology-based emissions mitigation. Thank you once again to COPA for providing such an excellent platform for governments, civil society, and the private sector to continue to innovate and learn from each other how to tackle the climate crisis’ most urgent challenges.

To close, we propose one climate-friendly wish for 2026: many more opportunities to exchange with a growing COPA network on how we can further LRM in 2026 and beyond!

View Energy Changes presentation here! (pdf-file)