Switzerland says that Italy is emitting 10-20 times more of the “potent” greenhouse gas trifluoromethane (HFC-23) than the Italians officially report. The Swiss observe, “International agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) basically have one snag: it is almost impossible to independently verify whether participating countries abide by the agreement.”
An interesting aspect of this article is the gleeful ‘gotcha’ tone of the Swiss who wrote this article. They apparently see themselves in a self-righteous big brother role. But even if they are correct, for all their huffing and puffing, 270,000 to 630,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent p.a. seems pretty small change. The real issue is the one you highlight, all of these green schemes are prone to rorting.
And why shouldn’t the Italians lie (not that I’m saying they are)???
The AGW movement has lied about every aspect of man-made global warming, so isn’t turnabout fair play???
One side lies about the causes and the other side lies about the solutions – doesn’t that sort of even things out???