HFC-22 is a common coolant used in things that require cooling, like air conditioners and refrigerators.
The process of producing HFC-22 yields another gas, HFC-23, as a waste product.
The United Nations has a system that rates gases based on their atmospheric effects.
As the United Nations became involved in efforts to curb climate change in the last 20 years, it relied on a scientific formula: Carbon dioxide, the most prevalent warming gas, released by smokestacks and vehicles, is given a value of 1. Other industrial gases are assigned values relative to that, based on their warming effect and how long they linger. Methane is valued at 21, nitrous oxide at 310. HFC-23, the waste gas produced making the world’s most common coolant — which is known as HFC-22 — is near the top of the list, at 11,700.
The result? Companies that produce HFC-22 are making it like it is going out of style, so they can produce HFC-23 as a waste product. Then they destroy the HFC-23 so they can get “waste gas credits”. Then they sell the “waste gas credits” on the open market. Step 4: profit.
The manufacturers have grown accustomed to an income stream that in some years accounted for half their profits. The windfall has enhanced their power and influence. As a result, many environmental experts fear that if manufacturers are not paid to destroy the waste gas, they will simply resume releasing it into the atmosphere.
More:
Carbon trading has become so essential to companies like Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited, which owns a huge coolant plant in this remote corner of northwest India, that carbon credits are listed as a business on the company Web site. Each plant has probably earned, on average, $20 million to $40 million a year from simply destroying waste gas, says David Hanrahan, the technical director of IDEAcarbon, a leading carbon market consulting firm. He says the income is “largely pure profit.”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Clippings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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What makes you think it’s unintended?
That’s the general tone of the NYT article, and the people quoted in it.
If you want to suggest that this was a cleverly disguised plan to transfer wealth from the first world to Fifth World countries such as India and China…actually, I’m not inclined to dispute that.
I would be more interested in knowing which people on the treaty writing committee have ties to the companies profiting from the trading.
[…] Dwight covers yet another green scam. […]