The European Union likes to think of itself as something of a pacesetter when it comes to protecting the environment, and it clearly sees its F-Gas Regulation as demonstrating leadership to the rest of the world in the area of refrigerant controls.

In that context, it was perhaps no surprise that last week the European Commission seized the opportunity of the ongoing talks around the Montreal Protocol to propose ambitious targets on HFC phasedown for the rest of the world to follow. Taking the lead from its own pretty stiff timescales set within Europe, the amendment proposed is nothing if not stretching.

The EC is proposing that developed nations start their phasedown in four years' time with a big 15 percent cut (on 2012 levels) in 2019 and end at a 15 percent level just 15 years later in 2034. Or as Miguel Arias Cañete, EC Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, called it: "timely, ambitious and realistic."

The language used by the Commission made it clear it takes its responsibilities seriously in leading the world out of HFCs.

"We owe it to future generations to agree on a global HFC phasedown without delay," Cañete said. "This would send an important signal ahead of the international climate negotiations in Paris later this year where we will adopt a new deal that will steer the world toward a more sustainable pathway."

It is clear that the EC believes developed nations, such as the U.S. and Canada, should take the lead on phasing down HFCs. In contrast to the 15-year plan proposed for industrialized countries, the developing nations are given the requirement to freeze their HFC production in 2019 and to phase down to 15 percent by 2040. The EU is convinced that simply giving the less-economically-advanced nations the same schedule, yet deferred by a number of years is not a flexible enough approach.

But its amendment makes clear that there is no point hanging around when it comes to the developed nations: "To benefit fully from synergies with the ongoing HCFC phaseout, which remains unchanged, measures on HFCs have to start as soon as possible, thus avoiding disruptions and costs caused by interim solutions that would require a further conversion in the future to remedy their adverse impacts on climate."

The global cumulative benefits of the proposed phasedown are impressive though — a reduction of an equivalent to 79 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050.

Of course, the F-Gas Regulation will give the EC a pretty good way of road testing the global phasedown. If the amendment comes to pass, Europe will effectively be doing everything that it proposes for the rest of the world with a three-year head start.

In Europe, the current talk is of a supply "cliff" around 2018, a significant fall in the production quota, which is not predicted to be matched by a similar fall in demand. This reportedly has occurred simply because of a miscalculation of the effects of moving one of the bans, but it underlines how unforeseen problems can arise.

All the better for the global phasedown then, that such problems can be tackled in Europe first. Hopefully, global supply and demand can then be managed in the light of European experience.

The other key element in the EU proposal is that, like its F-Gas requirements, all the refrigerant phasedown targets are expressed as CO2 equivalent, rather than a volume. This allows for more flexibility, since it allows an increase in the quantities of low-GWP alternatives as long as the climate impact does not grow.

If this proposal is accepted, it means that the U.S. cooling industry will, like Europe, have to get used to a whole new world of "equivalence calculation" — since recording of refrigerant use will have to follow the same model. If the European experience is repeated, it will see an equivalent rise in apps launched to help engineers with the calculation.

With African nations and India — which was previously opposed to a phasedown — submitting their own phasedown proposals in recent weeks to join those of the U.S. and Canada, there is now hope for real progress toward a global agreement at the next Montreal Protocol meeting in July in Paris. If the opposition of the likes of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia can be overcome, the next question will be: Whose amendments will be taken on board?

If the Montreal Protocol working group is wooed by the radical European proposals, then globally we can expect some challenging times. If we see the European response to F-Gas as a rehearsal of the issues, then "low-GWP conversion" will certainly become a guiding theme, and refrigerant alternatives such as CO2 and HFOs will rapidly gain in popularity.

Since the U.S. industry is only now coming to terms with the end of R22 in common usage, it looks set to be a steep learning curve.