The Nigerian government is building an Ozone village to serve as a technology development.

The announcement was made by the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Environment of Nigeria, Dr.Safia Muhammad, on behalf of the Nigerian Federal minster of Environment, John Ode, at the opening of the 4-day ODS Officers Network (ODSONET) Joint meeting, which is being held in Abuja, Nigeria.

As part of this project, the village, which is located in Ogun State is used for some locally fabricated prototype Ozone friendly machines. The machines include a box of foaming machines, CFC recovery and recycling machine and hydrocarbon refrigerant production machine. The box is said to be globally competitive and the initiative will be presented to the Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol to consider the Hydro carbon production machine as a pilot demonstration project to be considered under the HCFC programme.

The Montreal Protocol requires countries to also start freeze the consumption of hydro fluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 1st January, 2013 which some countries have already started restricting the importation of HCFCs to enable them meet the 2013 target. The head of Paris-based UNEP OzonAction Branch, Rajendra Shende said: "HCFCs have a high potential of global warming. Unlike for the CFCs where the phase out plans were only meant to address the ozone depleting potential. We now want to also consider the value added to the mitigation of the climate change. In phasing out the HCFC we will also be counting how much global warming potential we will help reduce".

Judging from past experience in CFC phase out, it is likely that there will be an influx in import of equipment using HCFCs towards African countries as other parts of the world will be grappling to get rid of their unwanted uses. "This will surely increase demand in HCFC, making it difficult for many countries to meet their obligation. Most countries present here are enforcing their ODS Regulations which controls importation of ODS including HCFC. But I can assure you that regulations alone will not help if they are not backed up with a good and well funded and assisted phase-out Programme," Shende added.

The ongoing meeting is meant to provide a platform for Ozone officers to compare note on the measures taken in the past years and draw the lessons learnt and in a few specific case still needing readjustment. It is expected that this joint meeting, which also brings together journalists from different parts of Africa, would allow countries in the region to exchange views on the process for the development of their respective HCFC Management Plans. Hydro ChloroFluoroCarbons, known as HCFCs are ozone depleting substances (ODS) that are used mostly as refrigerants or foam blowing agents.