If a typical large split system has about 10Kg of R410A (GWP = 2000x CO2) that's about 20 metric tonnes of CO2. Compare to 5 tonnes for an average passenger car per year. So a leak is like four years of driving a car.
Is it a disaster when an invisible odorless gas escapes and no-one notices? Or when a tree falls in forest? Not on its own, but our entire crisis is a pile of sand grains each too small to count.
My real point was accident vs disaster. Whether anyone knows about it or not (someone will know when the AC doesn't work and the repair tech sees it being empty). If one house looses coolant, then I'd call it an accident. If a vendor has a major problem during manufacturing so that the majority of units fail, then maybe we can use bigger words.
Is it a disaster when an invisible odorless gas escapes and no-one notices? Or when a tree falls in forest? Not on its own, but our entire crisis is a pile of sand grains each too small to count.