From 19-20 October, an international conference on natural refrigerants organised by shecco together with the support of its European project partners, has brought together high-profile policy, industry, and finance speakers just before upcoming global climate talks.
Atmosphere 2009, running from 19-20 October in Brussels, Belgium, gathered 150 experts from different continents to discuss the present and future of three natural refrigerants: carbon dioxide, ammonia, and hydrocarbons. The event, fully booked, was meant to bring together key decision makers and experts from the UN level, the World Bank, the European Commission, as well as national authorities, just before major climate talks are expected to decide about the future of the Montreal Protocol in Egypt, and the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen within the next two months.
Lively discussions repeatedly brought up the question of how to bring natural refrigerants “faster to market” – the topic of this year’s Atmosphere conference. Presentations and participants stressed the need to use existing Clean Development Mechanisms, World Bank funding programmes, UN educational programmes, e-learning modules, and national incentive schemes to drive change and move towards a faster replacement of F-gases.
“Atmosphere 2009 has exceeded our expectations, both in terms of the quality of discussions and the potential arising from this event. Interest in market-ready natural refrigerant technology solutions with still higher potential in the future is vivid, in both developed and developing countries. However, the need for more training and education, for funding made available to bring best practice to developing countries, and for knowledge exchange are keys to open the door to a wide-spread use of natural refrigerants,” says Nina Burhenne, Marketing Manager, shecco.
“We will now thoroughly analyse the results of this event and will identify new ways, together with our partners, of how to compile scarce and dispersed knowledge to spread it from experienced industry sectors and world regions to less experienced ones.”
shecco welcomes all comments and suggestions as a follow-up to this event. If you want to learn more about the Events Management area of shecco, please contact: Nina Burhenne, Marketing Manager, shecco at:nina.burhenne@shecco.eu or call +32 2 230 3700.
For seven years within the Norwegian conglomerate Norsk Hydro, and since 2007, shecco is now an independent company based in Brussels, Belgium. shecco supports its 70+ customers worldwide with a variety of marketing and communication services to help bring their climate friendly technologies faster to market.
More Information:
shecco Press Release, 20 October (128 KB)