Greenhouse gases thousands of times more damaging than CO2 are being smuggled into Europe
Large 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 th...