• An environmental pressure group claimed  t Chinese factories are illegally using ozone-depleting CFCs which have recently seen a spike in emissions that has baffled scientists.
• The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) campaign group said 18 factories in 10 Chinese provinces they looked into admitted to using banned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
• Producers and traders told EIA researchers posing as buyers that the majority of Chinese companies manufacturing foam — in high demand as an insulator in the booming construction sector — continue to use CFC-11 because of its better quality and lower price.
• CFCs are chemicals that deplete the ozone layer, the thin gaseous shield that protects life on Earth from dangerous solar rays.
• They were banned under the internationally binding 1987 Montreal Protocol and production of CFCs officially stopped in developing countries in 2010.
• Chinese authorities previously said the country successfully ended the industrial practice of using CFCs in 2007.
• The Foreign Ministry told AFP on Monday that China had made “tremendous contributions” to achieving the aims of the Montreal Protocol. “The increase in CFC-11 emission concentration is a global issue that should be taken seriously by all parties,” the Ministry said in a faxed comment, without responding to the specific claims raised in the EIA report.
• “As a party to the Montreal Protocol, China, like the international community, is also highly concerned about this issue,” the statement added.

• A representative from one company cited in the report said the firm sources CFCs from unlicensed factories with “shady” operations in Inner Mongolia and conceals the substance from customs agents.
• Others cited in the report said their companies produce the substance themselves, with one source saying its factories can produce 40 tonnes of CFC agents per day.
• Traders cited by EIA also said that Chinese companies export the banned CFC agents by mislabelling them as Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) compounds and other chemical blends.
• If China doesn't stop this illegal production, it will imperil our slowly healing ozone layer

The Hindu