Thursday, January 18, 2007

Kyoto jujitsu

According to several news reports, most recently in the Financial Times, major industrial manufacturers are reaping windfalls from a particular kind of emissions-trading credit offered at high rates of return. According to the environmental blog Terrapass, "a small investment in process changes in aging factories can easily destroy" HFC-23, "a refrigerant with very powerful effects on global warming -- it’s almost 12,000 times as bad as carbon dioxide."

What's wrong with that? The problem is that HFC restriction projects by 17 companies are expected to account for 31 percent of all Kyoto credits, even though "the gas makes up a small fraction of industrial greenhouse gas emissions." In other words, HFC is worse pound for pound, but an emissions lightweight. Developing countries are glad to buy the credits from these manufacturers so they can legally let methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Mitchell Feierstein, who works at an investment management firm, tells the FT, "We believe a proportional amount of investment should be focused on technologies...to curb emissions.” But he's hardly in a position to insure that that's the case.

Posted by Evan Hughes at 04:48 PM

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