with AP As the sun beats down in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, Ahmed Bukar turns on his home’s air conditioner and gets a blast of warm air. The charging valve on the outdoor unit is leaking the refrigerant gas that powers the unit. A technician recently helped him fill the air conditioner with gas, but he didn’t check for leaks.
In Abuja and across Nigeria , air conditioners are coming out of the walls as the appliance, once a luxury for the middle class, has become a necessity in an increasingly hot climate. The sector is governed by regulations that prohibit the release of refrigerant gases into the air, such as by conducting leak tests after repairing an appliance. Yet the systematic release of gases into the atmosphere due to faulty installations, unsafe disposal at the end of use, or adding gas without leak testing is a common problem in Nigeria, even though it is illegal.
Gases known as refrigerants that power cooling systems have a warming potential hundreds or even thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide , and the worst of them also damage the ozone layer . Following global agreements that promised to limit emissions of these gases into the atmosphere, such as the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendments , Nigeria has adopted regulations governing the use of these gases. But enforcement of these regulations is problematic and threatens Nigeria's commitments to reduce emissions.
"These laws, these rules, nobody is enforcing them ," said Abiodun Ajeigbe, he.