Yahoo Autos Greenhouse gas smuggling was as lucrative as cocaine in the '90s. It's back — and the US government is cracking down with 2 new arrests.
An illegal trade in greenhouse gases is threatening US climate goals.
Refrigerant smuggling has persisted since the 1990s, when regulations arose to close the ozone hole.
Unprecedented charges for driving greenhouse gases over the border show the US is cracking down.
Plenty of legitimate business drives the climate crisis — any industry that runs on fossil fuels or cow burps is helping raise our planet's temperature, endangering lives and economies for decades to come. But there's also a blooming black market in greenhouse gases.
The shadowy trade had a moment in the sun on Monday, when the Department of Justice brought charges against a San Diego man, saying that he smuggled hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) into the country.
HFCs are commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners, but they're also potent greenhouse gases. In the atmosphere, their warming effect can be hundreds to thousands of times as powerful as that of carbon dioxide. That's why their import is strictly regulated.
The indictment alleges that Michael Hart bought the chemicals in Mexico, hid them in his truck under a tarp as he drove back to the US, posted them on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace, and sold them for profit.
"This is the first time the Department of Justice is prosecuting someone for illegally importing greenhouse gases," US Attorney Tara McGrath said in a statement. "It will not be the last."
There's been a thriving black market for climate-altering refrigerant chemicals since the 1990s, at times as lucrative as selling cocaine. As time runs out to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change, Hart's case is just the first in the government's new concerted effort to end this illegal business once and for all.
New chemicals have brought new problems
Unlike in the Hart case, greenhouse gases often come in on shipping containers, intentionally labeled as something else, experts told Business Insider.
This smuggling method has persisted over two decades and three generations of refrigerants, starting with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Those chemicals famously made a hole in the ozone layer, until the 1987 Montreal Protocol, when 24 countries agreed to phase them out. The following generation of refrigerants, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), have now been replaced with HFCs.
"They're all produced in the same factories. They're all used in the same types of products. They're all distributed to the same channels," David Doniger, a senior federal strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who has championed efforts to stop production of each of these chemicals, told Business Insider.
Unlike their predecessors, HFCs don't create holes in the ozone layer, but they're still considered super pollutants for their aggressive heat-trapping capacity. That's why countries are now phasing them out, too.
Ditching HFCs could help avoid up to 0.5°C of global warming by 2100, according to the EPA. That may sound small, but remember that world leaders aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees since 2 degrees would be far more catastrophic to human health and political and economic stability. That half-a-degree matters.
Smuggling puts this goal in jeopardy, Avipsa Mahapatra, a climate campaign lead with the Environmental Investigation Agency, told Business Insider.
