Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:30:18 | version 1.43.00
39akzente 1/15 planning and monitoring climate change mitigation activities will need to be made more effective. The German Federal Environ- ment Ministry is therefore supporting Mex- ico with developing voluntary climate pro- tection measures, or NAMAs (Nationally Ap- propriate Mitigation Actions). The concept was established at the 2007 Climate Change Conference in Bali and targets countries like Mexico which are not subject to any CO₂ re- duction commitments as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also enables industrialised countries to fi- nance these voluntary climate change mitiga- tion actions or provide support by means of technology transfer. Mexico’s efforts to improve energy efficiency did not start from scratch, however. Several years ago a programme was introduced offer- ing private households the chance to exchange old refrigerators for new ones. Around two million appliances were replaced. Neverthe- less, despite the impressive success in reducing CO₂ emissions, getting individuals to upgrade appliances is not as easy as it might seem. The reason is that Mexico’s Government heavily subsidises electricity prices for private house- holds. ‘That’s why businesses benefit more quickly from replacing energy-inefficient ap- pliances, because they have to pay much higher electricity prices by comparison,’ ex- plains Feilbogen. Ingenious disposal system for end-of-life refrigeration units The replacement programme attaches great importance to disposing of old refrigerators in an environmentally friendly way. Every effort is made to ensure that these energy-wasters are removed from the market and do not reappear for resale. Furthermore, all chemical refriger- ants used in the appliances – including the cli- mate-damaging chlorofluorocarbon R134a – are disposed of correctly and any metallic components recovered are sent for recycling. The supplier of the new refrigerator only re- ceives payment for his work after submitting an appropriate confirmation from a certified disassembly plant. The significance of this ap- proach is highlighted by Ricardo Mendiz, who works at a disassembly plant in Toluca. ‘The old refrigerators are usually collected by scrap merchants,’ the young man explains. ‘And since they are only interested in scrap metal, they simply let the refrigerants escape.’ If that happens, the gases go straight into the atmos- phere and become climate-killers. ‘That’s something we have to prevent at all costs,’ says Mendiz emphatically. Business owner Morales is so impressed with the refrigerator programme that he is now planning to replace the rest of his old ap- pliances. Even if that means his cream cakes will have to sit behind a glass display case, Mo- rales is sure his customers will not be put off buying his brightly coloured sugary treats. > CONTACT Ernesto Feilbogen > ernesto.feilbogen@giz.de Left: Ricardo Mendiz, who works in a disassembly workshop, recovers CFC gases from an old refrigerator. Right: An end-of-life refrigerator is carefully dis- assembled into its individual parts (top). Mendiz marks a refrigerator that has been disposed of correctly. The supplier receives his money only on production of photographic evidence (bottom).