Today, the share of F-gases (fluorinated greenhouse gases) in total global warming emissions is already very high, if not only the chlorine-free fluids regulated by the Kioto Protocol are considered. Including present-day emissions of chlorine-containing F-gases, the current global warming potential of F-gas emissions represents not 1.5%, but 4.1% (rated with GWP 100yr) or 5.2% (rated with GWP 20yr) on a world-wide average.

By 2050, today's world-wide emissions of CFCs/HCFCs are expected to be completely overtaken by HFC emissions. Then the role of chlorine-free F-gas emissions in global greenhouse gas emissions will be still more prominent with shares of from 4.5 to 6.6% (rated with GWP 100yr) or 6% to 9% (rated with GWP 20yr). Their global warming potential will outnumber that of nitrous oxide, hitherto being the third largest greenhouse gas.

These forecasts of F-gas emissions are based on annual growth rates being different for industrialised and developing countries as of 2002. In industrialised countries, a slight decrease of absolute F-gas emissions is likely. For developing countries' emissions an annual growth rate of 4% is assumed. These assumptions are not arbitrarily high but are even lower than the extrapolated usage trends of the recent years. According to the scenario which finds most favour with Greenpeace, by 2050 F-gas emissions account for 6.2% (GWP 100yr) or 8.6% (GWP 20yr) of the total direct greenhouse gas emissions.

By 2050, by far the most important source of F-gas emissions (over 65%) will be the refrigeration and air-conditioning sector, and commercial refrigeration will be its most important sub-sector. This is why early replacement of HFC refrigerants with natural refrigerants as well as with technologies more compatible with the climate (from a TEWI perspective) is very significant.

In June 2004, such an initiative ("Refrigerant Naturally") was presented in Brussels by Coca Cola, Unilever, and McDonald with support from Greenpeace International.

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