ACR Journal

December 2020 | January 2021 REFRIGERANTS 28 Volume 7 No.1 Dave Smith, Business Director at Koura Global and member of the European FluoroCarbons Technical Committee (EFCTC), says everyone must work together to break the black market chain one link at a time. Illegal HFC refrigerants are being smuggled into Europe by organised crime outfits outside of the quotas defined in the F-Gas Regulation. The gases are widely circulated, readily available online and dicult to detect within the supply chain, meaning that buyers could be supporting illegal smuggling directly, or indirectly via a contractor. The pervasive market is a ecting all areas of the value chain; car garages, corner shops, hotels and many other industries all over Europe could be using these illegal HFCs. A new database created by Oxera Consulting earlier this year has helped to shine a light on the extent of this illegal trade. Firstly, Oxera data analysed by EFCTC revealed a gap of 19 million CO 2 eqT in 2018 between the reported exports from China to the EU and the ocial EU reports on imports from China. Oxera also identified a spectacular increase in the export volumes from China to EU neighbouring countries that occurred around the same time that EU HFC quotas were tightened. Normal market growth does not justify this increase. Based on this information, EFCTC has calculated that another 15m tonnes CO 2 e are most likely destined for illegal transportation into the EU market. That’s a total of up to an additional 34m tonnes of CO 2 e imported illegally into the EU every year. Huge losses Let’s put that in context for a second. That’s the equivalent of all 1.2m inhabitants of Brussels each taking one transatlantic flight every day for a month, or the emissions from adding 25m new cars to our roads in a year – more than all the cars currently on the road in Spain. If the GWP of illegal HFCs were a country, it would be the EU’s 20th largest in terms of CO 2 impact. Let me be clear: this is not a victimless crime. Illegitimate products flooding the EU market are supporting and funding organised crime and the activity of criminal gangs involved in the likes of human tracking, guns and drugs dealing. It threatens the livelihoods of many SMEs across the supply chain, already struggling in the current pandemic-induced economic crisis. Many are potentially distributing Dave Smith Illegal refrigerants fund organised crime and threaten the livelihoods of many SMEs across the supply chain Illegal Refrigerants.indd 28 03/12/2020 11:57

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