South Korea Targets 80% HFC Reduction by 2045 as AI and Chip Cooling Demand Surges

South Korea’s government has unveiled a new technology development initiative for hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant management, driven in part by rapidly expanding cooling requirements in artificial intelligence data centres and semiconductor fabrication plants. The country brought HFCs under its Ozone Layer Protection Act in 2024 and is now formally obligated to reduce its baseline HFC consumption by 80% by 2045, a commitment arising from the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. According to government data cited in the article, HFCs carry global warming potentials ranging from 138 to 12,400 times that of CO₂; the air-conditioning refrigerant R-410A alone exceeds 2,000 times CO₂’s warming effect.

Theand the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute plan to begin thein late June 2026. The scheme is structured around three tracks: deploying high-performance recovery equipment and linking recovery data to the Korea Environment Corporation’s Refrigerant Information Management System (RIMS); developing reclamation technology to purify mixed waste refrigerants for reuse, alongside efficient destruction methods for materials that cannot be reclaimed; and accelerating transition to low-GWP alternatives. Propane, with a GWP of roughly 3 times CO₂, is highlighted as a leading candidate refrigerant, though its flammability has slowed commercial uptake — the programme will therefore develop low-charge, high-efficiency heat pumps and refrigerant leak-detection and control systems designed to meet residential apartment-building safety standards.

The article notes that the refrigerant recovery and reclamation sector remains small-scale and commercially immature compared with the large-manufacturer-dominated refrigerant-using industries, and identifies this structural imbalance as a key reason behind the government’s direct technology-support intervention., identified as Director General of the Air Environment Bureau, is quoted describing refrigerants as essential materials underpinning national strategic industries and pledging proactive government support for next-generation low-GWP and reclaimed refrigerant adoption.