Global Warming Potential — Amendments

Amendment	Year	Description	Impact
Kigali Amendment 2016	2016	The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol added Article 2J on hydrofluorocarbons and Annex F listing controlled HFCs. Its change to Article 3 requires the specified global warming potentials when calculating relevant production, consumption, trade and emissions in CO₂ equivalents. Annex F labels its values as 100-year GWP: HFC-134a is assigned 1,430, while HFC-23 is assigned 14,800. These are the values in the amendment’s treaty-accounting table, rather than an unspecified value from whichever scientific assessment is most recent.	For a hypothetical quantity of 100 tonnes of HFC-134a, the listed factor gives 100 × 1,430 = 143,000 tonnes CO₂ equivalent. The gas still weighs 100 tonnes: CO₂ equivalent is a comparison metric, not extra physical mass or evidence that this quantity has already leaked. Equal masses of different HFCs can therefore count differently. In a treaty question, identify the gas, mass unit and prescribed GWP before applying a control schedule; do not substitute an ozone-depletion potential for a global-warming potential.