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''I was a climate negotiator, and no one had this in mind,'' said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council. ''It turns out you get nearly 100 times more from credits than it costs to do it. It turned the economics of the business on its head.''

Destroying the waste gas is cheap and simple, but it is hard to know exactly how much any one company has earned from doing so, since the market price for carbon credits has varied considerably with demand -- from about $9 to nearly $40 per credit -- and they can be sold at a discount through futures contracts.





In India, coolant plants received about half of the United Nations carbon credits awarded to companies in that country, for destroying their waste gas, during the system's first five years. They accrued the power and money to fight efforts to roll back the subsidy.

Compared with Indian representatives, Chinese diplomats have shown greater willingness at international meetings to consider altering the subsidy for waste gas credits, said Stephen O. Andersen, a former United States Environmental Protection Agency official who is now with the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development in Washington. That is because China has a more centrally controlled economy and because it is developing an industry based on newer coolants. ''It's easier for them to put the national interest before the interest of one manufacturing sector,'' he said.

A bigger question is just how much the European Union's decision to disallow, as of next year, the waste gas credits in its immense carbon trading system will decrease their value.





Mr. LaBudde, of the Environmental Investigation Agency, who has long campaigned against the subsidy, said he hoped that no one would buy these ''toxic'' credits that ''have no place in carbon markets'' and that they would quickly disappear. In its latest annual report, Gujarat Fluorochemicals acknowledged that its carbon credits ''may not have a significant market'' starting next year because European companies have previously been their primary buyers.



Chilling Effect: Articles in this series describe the impact of the rising demand for coolant gases, a growing contributor to global warming.

PHOTO: CHURNING OUT UNLIKELY PROFITS: A coolant factory in Jiangsu Province, China, is among those that have found a way to make money from a U.N. incentive meant to slow climate change. They produce more harmful coolant gas so they can be paid to destroy its waste byproduct. (PHOTOGRAPH BY QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (A12) GRAPHICS: Subsidies for a Global Warming Gas: More than 40 percent of all carbon credits issued by the United Nations have been awarded to 19 plants for destroying HFC-23, a gaseous byproduct of a coolant that causes global warming and is used in air-conditioners. (Source: U.N.E.P. Risoe Center) (A12)