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2009-01-05 11:44:16

New Year brings environmental label for California cars

Since 1 January, every new car built for sale in California must carry an “Environmental Performance Label” clearly ranking a vehicle's environmental impact, including emissions from the air conditioning refrigerant. The State's initatives can serve as example to implement  “green” initiatives at the national level.

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RE: New Year brings environmental label for California cars

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i thanks for your emission conterol in Calfornia . please tell from where can i prepare CO₂ comperesor for auto. we need at least one miluon per yeare.

RE: New Year brings environmental label for California cars

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How is the a/c global warming effect calculated as part of the total global warming rating? Do you use direct emmisions (leakage) as well as indirect emmisions (tailpipe)? What is the typical percent contribution of the A/C system to the total vehicle global warming rating? Is the a/c contribution shown separately for the consumer to see on the vehicle label? Thank you.

RE: New Year brings environmental label for California cars

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Dear Fred,

Depending on car size, model and driving conditions the percent contribution of the A/C system to the total vehicle global warming emissions may range between 5 and 20%. A CO₂ system can save more than 10% of a vehicle’s total greenhouse gas emissions. It can save up to 7% of a car’s total direct emissions and up to 5% of a car’s total indirect emissions.

The Final Regulation Order, which can be found at the California Air Resources Board website (see second link provided at the bottom of the article), includes details on how emissions related to air-conditioning are calculated for the purpose of the label. More specifically you can refer to paragraph 3 (Global Warming Score) of the regulation. From there you can infer that both direct and indirect emissions from the AC system are considered in calculating the global warming emissions value for a given car.

You can also infer that for the case of an AC system that uses a refrigerant with a Global Warming Potential ≤ 150 times that of CO₂ (see paragraph 3 (a) (2) (B) iii), the credit given for AC direct emissions is maximised and this contributes towards reducing the calculated overall global warming emissions for the given car.

Finally, the contribution of AC in the overall emissions is not shown separately for the consumer to see on the vehicle label. However, the total global warming score can significantly be affected by the AC system used.

The R744.com Team