Carbon credit scam

HFC-23, a super-potent greenhouse gas, is a byproduct of refrigerant HCFC-22 production. Although HFC-23 has little industrial value, it is nonetheless valuable to the Indian and Chinese refrigerant manufacturers handsomely rewarded, under the terms of the Kyoto protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), for capturing and incinerating HFC-23:

As a result, the "waste gas" HFC-23 has become much more profitable to refrigerant factories than HCFC-22 itself. Watchdog groups like the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) say the compensation system ends up providing a strong incentive to overproduce HCFC-22, using methods that maximise the output of HFC-23.

With the carbon credits worth an estimated 100 times the cost of disposal, refrigerant manufacturers have discovered a nice little "green" money maker.