Earth Equity News

'Perverse' CO2 Payments Send Flood of Money to China. By Mark Shapiro, YaleEnviro360, 12/13/10. “European legislators in Brussels have discovered that the strategy they devised to combat climate change is helping subsidize the economy of their, and America’s, major global competitor -- China. European companies have been overpaying Chinese companies more than 70 times the cost to eliminate a potent greenhouse gas -- triflouromethane, or hfc 23, a byproduct of manufacturing a refrigerant that has been banned in developed countries and is being phased out in developing ones.

“In order to offset their own greenhouse gases, companies and utilities in Europe that are subject to the emission limits of the Kyoto Protocol have been paying vastly inflated prices to Chinese companies to destroy hfc 23, and in the process have been providing the Chinese government with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue to compete against Europe’s own ‘green’ industries. European concern about this practice was a major source of contention during last week’s climate negotiations in Cancun, as the UN attempted to defend the integrity of the multi-billion dollar global carbon offset market.”