The coalition is pitted mainly against China, the world’s leading manufacturer of air-conditioners that use the refrigerant. Most window air-conditioners and air-conditioning systems in the US also use this refrigerant.

International pressure for quick action has grown rapidly. The US has joined Argentina, Brazil, Iceland, Mauritania and Norway in notifying the Ozone Secretariat of the United Nations they want to negotiate an accelerated phaseout of HCFC’s at an international conference in Montreal in September.

An accelerated phaseout of the refrigerant could speed up by five years the healing of the ozone layer and cut emissions of global-warming gases by the equivalent of at least one-sixth of the reductions called for under the Kyoto Protocol.