What are the costs and savings of the CFC phaseout?
The costs have been large, but not as large as initially feared. As the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Economic Options Committee (an expert advisory body) stated in 1994: “Ozone-depleting substance replacement has been more rapid, less expensive, and more innovative than had been anticipated at the beginning of the substitution process. The alternative technologies already adopted have been effective and inexpensive enough that consumers have not yet felt any noticeable impacts (except for an increase in automobile air conditioning service costs)” (UNEP, 1994). A group of over two dozen industry experts estimated the total CFC phaseout cost in industrialized counties at $37 billion to business and industry, and $3 billion to consumers (Vogelsberg, 1997). A study done for Environment Canada presented to a UN meeting in 1997, estimated a total CFC phaseout cost of $235 billion through the year 2060, but economic benefits totaling $459 billion, not including the savings due
