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Australia has joined more than 70 countries that have pledged to cut down on  food waste due to poor refrigeration.

The countries signed the pledge at an annual meeting of the Montreal Protocol which took place at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome, Italy last week.

About one-third of the world's food is lost or wasted. As a result participants are seeking to develop better methods to keep food cold while being stored and transported.

Poor refrigeration leads to the loss of about 9% of perishable food in developed countries and about 23% in developing countries, where millions of people suffer from malnutrition.

Australia’s National Food Waste Strategy, which was launched in late 2017, provides a framework to support collective action towards halving food waste by 2030.

The parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer are also meeting to do more work on the Kigali Amendment which was introduced to phasedown the use of HFCs.

Among the invited participants at the high-level roundtable discussion are Inger Andersen, executive director of UN Environment Program; David Appel, co-chair of the Global Food Cold Chain Council and president of refrigeration for Carrier, Dr Liz Goodwin, together with a number of national environment ministers. 

Australian participants at the event included the Department of Environment director, Patrick McInerney, chair of the Australian Food Cold Chain Council, Mark Mitchell and Refrigerants Australia executive director, Greg Picker.