Your subsequent window unit air conditioner is in for some large adjustments over the subsequent decade. The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule final week to largely section out the chemical compounds in air conditioners that hold your room cool however harm the local weather.

Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, are the premise for many cooling know-how. In addition to air conditioners, they’re additionally present in every part from fridges to automotive engines. The chemical compounds got here into widespread use many years in the past after the world acknowledged the necessity to section out a unique sort of chemical—chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which had been wreaking havoc on the ozone layer.

Unfortunately, HFCs have as much as 11,700 instances the warming potential of carbon dioxide, and the United Nations has warned that not addressing HFC use may imply “we essentially cook ourselves.” Enter the brand new EPA rule, which may spur widespread innovation in cooling know-how. If previous guidelines round refrigerants are any indication, it may even lower the prices on future air conditioner fashions.

What the EPA’s HFC Rule Mandates

The world got here collectively to signal an settlement referred to as the Kigali Amendment to section out HFCs and every signatory nation is chargeable for its personal plan. The U.S. has been mulling one for some time, and it’s lastly prepared.

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This new rule, the EPA said, could help the U.S. avoid the equivalent emissions of 4.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide over the course of the next three decades; that number is about the same as three whole years of emissions from the power sector, which is a lot.

The EPA’s new rule oversees the phase-out of HFCs over the subsequent 15 years, giving producers more and more smaller allowances annually. (There’s additionally a number of safeguards in place to be sure that producers don’t illegally import HFCs past the boundaries allotted to them, which was a big problem in the EU, the place HFC targets are already in place.) The requirement will kick in subsequent 12 months, when the business is allowed to make use of 90% of its present allotment of HFCs in producing new home equipment and sustaining previous ones.

“Ninety percent does sound like a lot,” said Shanika Whitehurst, the associate director of product sustainability, research, and testing at Consumer Reports, who formerly worked as the environmental justice coordinator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “But think about all the things that refrigerant goes into. We’re not just talking residential refrigeration and cooling, we’re talking about grocery stores, we’re talking about HVAC systems in schools and buildings, all of that plays into it.” (Grocery store refrigeration and freezing, investigations have found, is a major issue in the industry when it comes to HFC emissions.)

Between 2023 and 2028, the regulation says, the allotment will be ratcheted up to 60% of the current baseline, with further cuts through 2034. That means that those of us who might be in the market for an air conditioner in the next few will still see HFC-based units on the shelves. But options will begin to open up.

“The ratcheting down effect is to be able to say, ‘OK, we’re giving [manufacturers] leeway here because there’s window units that have already been manufactured,’” Whitehurst said. “[The EPA] isn’t going to say, ‘OK, take those all and burn them.’ What they will say is that the production of that particular kind is going away. That’s going to spur next-generation technologies.”

What Future Air Conditioners Could Use Instead of HFCs

We’ve already received precedent for the sorts of optimistic unintended effects that may observe regulation. In 2010, family cooling techniques had been required to switch from utilizing a chemical often called R-22, which broken the ozone, to R-407c. As it seems, R-407c is extra environment friendly than the chemical it was changing, which means producers may make models smaller and use much less coolant—and cheaper. R-407c is an HFC, which means it should nonetheless require an eventual phaseout, however large names within the business have already been at work finding a replacement in anticipation of laws like these.

Researchers have also been making major strides involving new chemicals, including hydrofluoroolefins, ammonia, and propane. Some studies have also focused on new materials that transfer heat as a possible solution.

Figuring out next-generation technologies, though, isn’t just limited to creating a chemical to replace HFCs that’s slightly less bad for the environment. It’s also about innovating new methods of keeping us cool that don’t involve chemicals at all. Whitehurst pointed out that evaporative coolers have become increasingly popular in Europe following that region’s HFC regulations. Heat pumps and designs for cooler buildings, like rooftop gardens, could also become more and more common as both temperatures rise and older, polluting methods of cooling slowly get phased out.

“Once those systems go kaput, there should be newer technologies on the market,” Whitehurst said. “Innovation does not happen overnight. We’ve been looking at this HFC issue since the early 2000s. You have the Department of Energy providing grants to industry to figure out what technologies we can put in place that don’t do these things. You’re spurring technology in the development of other techniques, and you’re spurring the development of other chemicals.”

The world has its work lower out for it, although. Global ranges of HFC-23, a kind of chemical utilized in fridges and air conditioners, hit a brand new peak excessive in 2018. The success of the brand new EPA rule shall be instrumental in guaranteeing that peak comes down—and that we nonetheless have entry to cooling as a result of we’re going to wish it.