Are you a UK citizen who flies to Majorca at the drop of a hat? Do you crank up the heat in the winter, and the air-con in the summer? Maybe you can’t live without your SUV? Well there’s some bad news coming your way: if you are an energy-hogging British citizen you might just have to pay for it.
In a bold move, the UK’s House of Commons suggested that Parliament create a personal carbon-trading scheme for all UK citizens. It would work like food rationing –– each citizen would be allotted his or her own “carbon emissions allowance.”
That would mean globetrotting celebs like the Beckhams would have to purchase additional carbon credits, or take part in carbon emissions reducing activities in order to continue using their private jet. Meanwhile those people who consume less energy could trade or sell their carbon credits, whereby the price and amount of credits on the market would be established by a national carbon budget.
According to Ben Block from the Worldwatch Institute on World Changing, this was “the strongest statement yet by any government in favor of an individual cap-and-trade system for buying and selling greenhouse gas emissions.”
Tim Yeo from The House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee told UK media:
“It’s the single best instrument to encourage every man, woman, and child in the country to make a low-carbon choice every day.
“The problem with green taxes is they tend to bear most heavily on poor households. This way poor households will be able to make cash rewards for their decisions.”
Modeled after cap-and-trade
While implementing a program might be difficult –– Will people be allowed to offset with organizations they choose? Who’s going to set standards? Will there be a consolidation of for-profit providers? What will happen with to the not-for-profit organizations? –– the Committee said a mandatory system would cut greenhouse gas emissions more effectively than a carbon tax or the a cap-and-trade system currently in place for UK businesses and industry.
Although the UK belongs to the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme, and Parliament is debating a Climate Change Bill that would cut emissions nationwide, the Committee stressed that such policies would not be enough to meet the goal of cutting emissions back 60 percent by the 2050. The Committee’s report said:
“Reductions in carbon emissions from business and industry will be meaningless unless accompanied by significant and equal reductions from households and individuals.”
About 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions are derived from individuals via domestic energy consumption. Home heating and transportation are major sources.
How the personal carbon-trading scheme might work
The Committee proposes that the personal carbon market follow a similar cap-and-trade structure found in the Climate Change Bill (PDF). Citizens would start with the same quota each year, while individuals such as the disabled, seniors or members of large families, may be given larger allowances. The market would establish its own currency.
Users would be given an ID card and credits would be monitored in the same way people use club cards at the grocery or video store. (A UK environment minister proposed the swipe-card plan 2 years ago).
The biggest hurdle, as in any new nationwide undertaking, would be paying for the bureaucracy needed to monitor and manage each person’s carbon footprint. In response, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs said that a personal carbon trading scheme would be ahead of its time and too costly to implement, as the estimated cost could be as much as $4 billion to start, and about the same amount to run each year.
UK residents however, if up to them, would probably welcome the idea as a steady number of them are already purchasing offsets to reduce their emissions. In 2007 UK individuals traded 5 percent of the $258 million in carbon credits outside the official carbon markets in 2007, according to Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance.
And in some ways the UK is already ahead of the game –– in the last year companies have started measuring the carbon footprint of a range of products, including chips and shampoo.
The author at the Worldwatch Institute points out that urban dwellers by default have a smaller carbon footprint, thanks to the widespread use of public transportation. We think this fact might encourage people (if forced to comply with a personal carbon allowance) to consider moving closer to urban centers. This would reduce the development of open spaces, which is also a good thing for the environment.
A personal trading system would spur people to be more spendthrift with their energy use and educate people on a national scale about the dire consequences of global warming.
For more in-depth commentary on the voluntary offset market, see:
The State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2008
Behind the Scenes at Carbon Catalog
World Bank Finds Bureaucracy Slowing Down Emissions Cuts
(Image credit: Łukasz Strachanowski)