Carbon trading for everyone
In the UK’s fabulous The Guardian newspaper, Miliband plans carbon trading ‘credit cards’ for everyone.
Every citizen would be issued with a carbon “credit card” - to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket - under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five years, according to a feasibility study commissioned by the environment secretary, David Miliband, and published today.
In an interview with the Guardian Mr Miliband said the idea of individual carbon allowances had “a simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift”.Under the scheme, everybody would be given an annual allowance of the carbon they could expend on a range of products, probably food, energy and travel. If they wanted to use more carbon, they would be able to buy it from somebody else. And they could sell any surplus.
He said: “It is a way of pricing carbon emissions into individual behaviour and it would recognise carbon thrift, as well as economic thrift. Twenty years ago if I had said 8 million people would have a Tesco loyalty card, no one would have believed me.” The scheme will be discussed at a special cabinet committee on the future role of the state convened for today.
There are a million technical, ethical, and legal issues with this plan that would have to be resolved before such a system could go ahead. In the meantime the simplest way to really do your part is to reduce your energy use, cut down on non-essential travel, buy locally, question the source of the things you buy and buy carbon credits to offset the emissions associated with your life. When, in the distant future, the UK government introduces their personal carbon quotas and micro-carbon trading schemes, I would still assume that it will be preferable to buy carbon credits from a reputable source than from a bloke in a bar. — DS
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