The impact of hydrofluorocarbons on global warming can be up to thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
ADVERTISEMENTLarge volumes of climate-warming gases are being smuggled into Europe from China and Turkey, a new investigation has found.
The illegal trafficking is compromising the global push to phase them out, a report by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said this week.
These hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), described by the EIA as “super-pollutant”, are a group of synthetic gases that are predominantly used for cooling and refrigeration.
Although they do not damage the ozone layer like other banned refrigerants, their impact on global warming can be up to thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Why are HFCs being smuggled into Europe?
HFCs are human-made gases used in refrigeration, air-conditioning, insulating foams and aerosol propellants.
“Most HFCs are contained within equipment, so emissions are the result of wear, faulty maintenance, or leakage at the end of a product’s lifetime,” the Climate and Clean Air Coalition writes on its website.
European countries and other industrial nations have pledged to cut HFC use by 85 per cent before 2050 as part of the 2016 Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
To facilitate this phase-down, authorised HFC producers and consumers are allotted usage quotas that are gradually lowered.
Despite the commitment to curb the use of HFCs, demand remains high and prices have consequently soared.
This has been a boon for smugglers - many of whom are also licensed to trade - and encouraged them to increase supplies sourced from Turkey and China.
“It is so much easier, if you’re licensed, to just exceed your quota: it is so hard to prove,” Fin Walravens, a senior EIA campaigner, told news agency Reuters.
“The phase-down is meant to make HFCs expensive and make people think alternatives are better and more cost-effective, but if illegal trade comes in and is sold at half the price, the whole system crumbles.”
Some 20 to 30 per cent of legally traded HFCs - the equivalent of up to 30 million tonnes of CO2 - are illicitly trafficked into Europe, a 2021 EIA investigation found.
The new report has not updated that estimate but “very little has changed”, according to Walravens.
EU struggles to control illegal shipments of gases
Authorities in the European Union are struggling to control these illegal shipments coming in via Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.
Black market traders and traffickers are becoming “more sophisticated and adapting their tactics to evade detection,” the EIA found during its two-year semi-undercover investigation.
“[They are] employing tactics such as avoiding banned disposable cylinders and disguising HFCs as less-regulated hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) refrigerant alternatives,” EIA said in a press release.
The crime not only exacerbates climate change but has also been linked to significant tax evasion, the organisation added.
