• This article discusses the potential reduction in emissions that could be achieved through better management of the refrigerants used in air conditioning and refrigeration systems.
• Students will learn about the environmental impact of refrigerants, ways to better manage refrigerants through controlling leakages and ensuring proper end-of-life disposal, and challenges to adopting this solution.

Positives

• The article includes a sidebar with a few ideas for what readers can do to help.
• Students see an example of how emission reduction potentials are estimated, as the methodology for this analysis is thoroughly described.

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should understand the causes of climate change and the importance of emission reduction.

Differentiation

• Chemistry classes can further explore the specific properties of CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, and natural refrigerants like CO₂ and NH₃ to identify why they differ in global warming potential and ozone depletion.
• Civics classes can discuss the existing international agreements around refrigerant management, such as the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment (agreement to reduce HFCs in 2016). Students can also be challenged to propose a future international agreement or country-specific regulation that would support improvements in refrigerant management.
• Economics classes can discuss the economic challenges to implementing this solution and explore ways to overcome these challenges through incentives like carbon credits.
• In Earth science classes, students can check out the entire list of solutions by Project Drawdown to see how this solution compares to others.
• The article mentions the opportunity to replace high-warming refrigerants with lower-warming alternatives. Students can explore this further by reading the article on alternative refrigerants.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.