Sail across the sea

Chapter 570 Absolutely Cannot Agree
Wu Zhefu was truly at his wit's end, because it was Gao Fan who came up with the idea of ​​asking him to come out of retirement to solve the fluorine chemical problem.

After learning from Xu Ying who the culprit was, Gao Fan made a condition to Wu Zhefu: he had to attend the commissioning ceremony of Cangfu's plant, and he said that Wu Zhefu only needed to sit on the stage without saying a word, and Gao Fan would do the rest.

Wu Zhefu had no reason to refuse such a request. Strictly speaking, he wasn't taking the blame for someone else, because he was the one who pinned the blame on Gao Fan.

In addition, he also knew that taking the blame would be beneficial and harmless; if the rectification of the fluorochemical industry was effective in the future, he would also get a share of the credit.

As for whether this matter would be successful, Wu Zhefu was even less worried. He had already witnessed Gao Fan's capabilities ten years ago. Moreover, now that Gao Fan had Xu Ying as a powerful backer, what couldn't he accomplish?

Gao Fan kept everyone in suspense before continuing, "Director Wu and Director Wan both mentioned the Montreal Protocol earlier. All of you here are veterans in the fluorochemical industry, so you must be very familiar with the Montreal Protocol. I won't go into details here."

"What I want to say is that you may have heard that the Montreal Agreement has some grace clauses for developing countries. According to per capita emissions, China will not be affected by the emission limits of the agreement until at least 2000. However, I have heard another message, that is, the country hopes to achieve the emission limit targets as soon as possible, so as to win more favorable conditions for our country in the negotiations for rejoining the GATT."

"Simply put, the country has placed expectations on our fluorochemical industry, hoping that we can share the burden for the country and complete the replacement of CFCs ahead of schedule. The specific goal is to completely stop the production of CFCs, except for a small number of intermediates, within about three years, that is, before June 30, 1996."

These words caused an uproar in the entire venue.

Of the 37 companies that attended the ceremony, more than half primarily produce CFCs, while some also produce F22, though in small quantities.

A few years ago, China's refrigerator industry developed rapidly, leading to a surge in demand for refrigerants, and refrigerant plants were built across the country. Back then, the ozone layer wasn't a concern, and no one thought about the potential harm of CFCs. Foreigners had been making them for years without problems, so why couldn't we?
Once the factory was built, some foreign countries suddenly claimed that chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants would damage the ozone layer, causing direct ultraviolet radiation from the sun to reach the Earth, potentially leading to human extinction. Everyone was quite frightened and felt a sense of unease.

Later, we heard that the national Montreal Protocol had been signed, and the provincial chemical and environmental protection authorities communicated this information to everyone. We remembered two key points:

First, CFCs will be phased out.

Second, it's still early.

Since it's still early, it's none of your business. 2000 is seven years from now. I don't even know if I'll still be the factory manager then, so why should I worry about it?
Provincial officials share the same mentality: Will they still be in this position seven years from now? Why bother worrying about that?

It's not that no company takes this matter to heart. Some factory managers feel they are still young and plan to continue working for another twenty or thirty years, so they cannot take the phasing out of CFCs lightly.

They consulted with engineers at the factory and learned that the production process for F22 wasn't complicated; it could even be achieved with slight modifications to equipment previously used for producing R11 and R12 CFCs. The main obstacle was that F22 was more than twice as expensive as CFCs, and most domestic refrigerator manufacturers didn't accept F22, preferring CFCs instead.

Without buying and selling, there is no production, so everyone put the matter aside. Some companies set up separate facilities to produce both CFCs and F22 products simultaneously, but most companies still focused on CFCs production. But who would have thought that coming to this ridiculous production launch ceremony, expecting just to have hotpot and sing karaoke, would result in hearing such shocking news?

"Why should we be the only ones to share the burden for the country? If we're going to share the burden, everyone should share it. Our factories only have a million or two in fixed assets; we're just working hard to make a living in the market. The country has so many large enterprises; why don't they share the burden for the country?"

"Yes, yes, foreigners have said that we are a developing country and there is no rush to phase out chlorofluorocarbons. What reason does the country have to phase them out ahead of schedule!"

"We absolutely cannot agree to this!"

"At worst, we'll just quit. I refuse to believe the government will let my hundreds of workers go to hell!"

The crowd below was in high spirits; if it weren't for the presence of leaders, some people would probably have started swearing.

Wu Zhefu sat on the stage, feeling extremely uneasy. He could clearly sense that everyone's anger was directed at him, but no one was calling him out by name.

The claim that China has achieved its emission reduction commitments ahead of schedule was actually fabricated by Gao Fan. During internal discussions of the Montreal Protocol within the Ministry of Chemical Industry, everyone felt that the grace period for developing countries was beneficial to China, as it would provide Chinese fluorocarbon companies with a buffer period.

However, favorable opportunities also have drawbacks.

Western countries do not have such a buffer period, which forces their companies to start developing CFC alternatives now.

If Chinese companies treat the buffer period as a comfort zone, lying there without making progress, they will find that the gap between them and Western countries has widened further when the buffer period ends, making it even more difficult to catch up.

The best approach is to maintain the existing system during the buffer period while simultaneously developing alternatives to narrow the gap with the West. Once China's own alternative production system matures and it becomes competitive with foreign countries, there's nothing to regret about proactively phasing out CFCs. On the contrary, it can be used as evidence in future international negotiations to silence Western countries.

To reiterate, Western countries in the 90s still had some sense of shame; at least publicly, they liked to talk about universal values. If China claims to have voluntarily waived its leniency conditions and phased out CFCs ahead of schedule, even doing better than some Western countries, it could indeed gain considerable moral advantage in some international negotiations.

Of course, Wu Zhefu could not have imagined how shameless the West would become in later generations.

They set a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, hoping to use it to curb the progress of developing countries. But when they discovered that their counterparts were thriving in fields such as wind power and solar energy, while they themselves were lagging behind, they immediately changed their tune, hiring a group of scholars to claim that global warming was a hoax.

Damn, that's utterly shameless!
(End of this chapter)