The world just took another huge step forward on fighting climate change

Last week, we learned that the Paris climate agreement will go into effect in November after the European Union formally joined the accord, tipping it past the threshold needed to become a reality.

Now this week brings another major foray in international climate diplomacy, as close to 200 countries adopted an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are super-polluting, powerful greenhouse gases.

“The prospects for the future of our planet are bright,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement about the deal. McCarthy led a U.S. delegation to Kigali, Rwanda, where the deal was struck early Saturday after negotiations that ran through the night.

Read Chris Mooney’s story in The Washington Post - “The world just took another huge step forward on fighting climate change.”