full story at the link. sounds like carbon trading is going to be a boom, but it will also bankrupt companys.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... e-gas.html
A handful of Chinese and Indian chemicals companies seemingly have the world over a barrel – or rather a large number of barrels of a super-greenhouse gas called HFC-23, which is 14,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
This week, apparently following Chinese threats to vent stockpiles of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, a UN panel issued two million valuable carbon credits to a company called Juhua. It has a factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, where the gas can be destroyed.
Nobody needs HFC-23. It is a waste by-product of the manufacture of a refrigerant called HCFC-22, used mostly in developing nations. To curb the release of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, the signatories to the Kyoto protocol agreed to pay carbon credits to refrigerant manufacturers that agree to capture and destroy it. The manufacturers can then sell the credits to western companies that want to offset their obligations to cut emissions of other greenhouse gases, under a Kyoto scheme known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).