Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are greenhouse gases with high global warming potentials that are mainly used in refrigeration and air conditioning. Historically, they were emitted only slowly from such systems and long term containment remains an important engineering and environmental issue. As part of their commitment under the Rio convention, nations are required to report annual calculated production and emissions of all greenhouse gases and the reports submitted by the European countries have been examined to determine the extent to which containment of HFCs (expressed as the rate of emission from the bank remaining in equipment) has changed with time. Although there is wide variation between countries, the annual emission rates of [...]