Italy and China Discuss Natural Refrigerant Training for Technicians

Members of the Chinese and the Italian national ozone units recently met in Rome to discuss training technicians to work with natural refrigerants and China’s refrigerant transition in the refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump sectors (RACHP).

New training requirements: Marco Buoni, the director of Italy’s Centro Studi Galileo, a leading Italian HVAC&R technician training center, led a presentation detailing the new training requirements for technicians in the European Union.

• The EU’s revised F-gas Regulation contained a requirement to develop training and certification programs for technicians working with natural refrigerants.
• The regulation introduces six types of certification for installing, servicing and repairing equipment using CO₂ (R744), ammonia (R717), hydrocarbons and synthetic refrigerants.
• In November 2025 the Chinese government and the UN Environment Programme hosted a training event on general good servicing practices in refrigeration, with a particular focus on the safe handling of cold storage systems using natural refrigerants such as ammonia and ammonia–CO₂ cascade systems.

China’s decarbonization strategy: The event touched on China’s efforts to decarbonize its RACHP sector. Natural refrigerants are an element of this initiative.

• As of December 2025 there were an estimated 25 stores and 10 industrial sites using transcritical CO₂ refrigeration systems, according to “Refrigeration: Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration with Natural Refrigerants,” a new report from ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com. 
• In January 2026 Haier Carrier announced it had completed China’s first automated production line for CO₂ racks, which it said would increase production eight-fold.
• China is also adopting CO₂ technology for comfort heating and cooling. Two notable projects include the replacement of fossil fuel boilers at Ordos Ejin Horo Airport with a CO₂-based heating/cooling system and a newly built AstraZeneca pharmaceutical park in Qingdao, which uses a Haier Carrier CO₂ heat pump for comfort heating and cooling.

Progress in MAC: China announced in April 2025 that it will ban the use of refrigerants in new cars with a GWP of greater than 150 starting July 2029.

• China did not previously have a GWP restriction for refrigerants used in mobile air-conditioning (MAC) applications. R134a is the most popular refrigerant for passenger cars and trucks sold in China, with emissions from the refrigerant in the MAC sector reaching 20 million metric tons of CO₂ annually, per the International Council on Clean Transportation.
• Chinese manufacturers will take a leading role in the development of thermal management systems for electric vehicles, according to S&P Global Mobility.