Recalling decisions VII/11 and XXI/6, in which the Meeting of the Parties requested all parties to urge their national standards-setting organizations to identify and review their standards for laboratory and analytical procedures that mandate the use of Montreal Protocol controlled substances with a view to adopting, where possible, laboratory and analytical products and processes that do not use controlled substances,

Recalling decision XXVI/5, which extended the global laboratory and analytical-use exemption until 31 December 2021, under the conditions set out in annex II to the report of the Sixth Meeting of the Parties,

Noting that Annex C, group I, substances (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) are currently not included in the global laboratory and analytical-use exemption,

Noting the 2018 report by the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel, which notes that hydrochlorofluorocarbons will be required for laboratory and analytical uses after 2020,

Welcome to the eleventh edition of the Handbook for the Vienna Convention. This edition has been updated to include all relevant information from 1985 to date. 

The Handbook is structured as follows: section 1 sets out the full text of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985). Section 2 comprises the full text of all of the decisions of the Conferences of the Parties, up to and including its eleventh meeting in November 2017. 

Since 1991 the publication of the Handbook for the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) has proved to be a valuable reference source for the decisions the Parties have made in the process of developing the ozone regime. The Handbook itself is published in response to the Parties’ decision (made in 1990) requesting the Secretariat to publish and update regularly a Handbook, setting out the Protocol, as adjusted and amended, together with the decisions of the Parties and other relevant material.

This interactive tool presents a non-exhaustive list of international, regional and national safety standards relevant to Refrigeration, Air-Conditioning and Heat Pump equipment developed by relevant Standards Organizations.

The standards are broadly classified into two categories: Main system safety standards, subdivided into Vertical system safety standards and Horizontal system safety standards, and Supplementary standards.