Personal carbon trading

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Personal carbon trading
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Personal carbon trading refers to the act of equally allocating emissions credits to individuals on a per capita basis, within national carbon budgets. Individuals would then have to surrender these credits when buying fuel or electricity. Individuals wanting or needing more energy would be able to partake in emissions trading to secure more credits, just as companies do now within the EU ETS.

It is sometimes confused with carbon offsetting due to the similar notion of paying for emissions, but is a quite different concept designed to be mandatory and to guarantee that nations achieve their carbon emissions targets.

Contents [hide]
1 Proposals
2 Related emissions reduction proposals and initiatives
3 References
4 External links
4.1 General
4.2 Tradable Energy Quotas (AKA Domestic Tradable Quotas)

[edit] Proposals
There are no working schemes currently in existence. Current proposals include:

Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) - devised by environmental writer, David Fleming, who first published the idea in 1996 under its former name Domestic Tradable Quotas (DTQs). The UK's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research[1] has been researching this scheme since 2003, and more recently the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), through its independently funded project RSA CarbonLimited[2].
Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) - described in the book “How we can save the planet” by Mayer Hillman and Tina Fawcett. Work on PCAs is ongoing at the Environmental Change Institute[3], Oxford, UK. The title "PCAs" or "PCA scheme" is sometimes used generically to refer to any proposed form of personal carbon trading.
Tradable Personal Pollution Allowances - originally proposed in an article by Dr. Kirk Barrett in 1995 [4] and applicable to any form of pollution, including carbon dioxide.
These proposals could be applied on a national, or multi-national (e.g. EU-wide) basis. Individuals would most likely hold their emissions credits in electronic accounts, and would surrender them when they make carbon-related purchases, such as electricity, heating fuel and petroleum. PCAs could also require individuals to use credits for public transport. Tradable Energy Quotas would bring other sectors of society (eg. Industry, Government) within the scope of the scheme.

Individuals who exceed their allocation (i.e. those who need more emissions credits than they have been given) would be able to purchase additional credits from the open market, and individuals that are under allocation can sell.

Proponents of personal carbon trading claim that it could increase ‘carbon literacy’, thereby allowing individuals to make a fair contribution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It could allow the burden of reducing emissions to be shared evenly throughout the economy, rather than focusing all the attention on business and governments, and encourage more localised economies.

Personal carbon trading has been criticized for its possible complexity and high transaction costs. As yet, there is minimal reliable data on these issues. There is also the fear that personal "rationing" of allowances and trading will be politically unacceptable and any stringent limits would be viewed as a form of additional taxation or poll tax, especially if those allowances are used to buy from industries who are already passing-on costs from their participation in carbon levy or trading schemes such as the EU ETS. Some have criticised trading systems because they would not be egalitarian, allowing the rich to buy extra carbon rations and so go on polluting while the poor have to cut back.

Most proposals envisage schemes that encourage wealth redistribution from the 'rich', as they needed to buy allowances from 'the poor'. Such personal carbon trading schemes are less regressive than a tax on carbon, as some low income people are likely to be better off, whereas with a direct tax all low income people are worse off, prior to revenue redistribution. This goal is complicated by practical difficulties in measurement, and because the elderly and poor may need to purchase extra allowances themselves, as they are very often the ones with older, inefficient appliances and households.

Current proposals are national in scope, and thus cannot take advantage of the current international frameworks such as the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism which tries to find the most cost-effective way of reducing emissions on a global scale by chanelling development funds towards the Third World and developing countries.

[edit] Related emissions reduction proposals and initiatives
Sky Trust proposal - devised by Peter Barnes[5] and described in his book Who Owns The Sky.[6]
Cap and Share proposal - developed by The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability[7] (FEASTA) in Ireland
Carbon Rationing Action Groups[8] - groups in the UK and US that voluntarily cap their greenhouse gas emissions
CarbonLimited[9] - RSA Ltd report proposing a personal carbon trading scheme suggested as feasible by 2013

[edit] References
^ Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
^ RSA CarbonLimited
^ Environmental Change Institute (ECI) - Oxford University
^ Personal Pollution Allowance Proposal:
^ Amazon.com: Profile for Peter Barnes
^ PPI: Making Climate Control Pay: The Sky Trust Proposal by Jan Mazurek
^ Feasta: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
^ Home | CRAG
^ RSA - CarbonÂ Limited - Personal Carbon trading - Personal Carbon Trading feasible by 2013

[edit] External links

[edit] General
CarbonCreditReview.com - Carbon Credit News and Reviews
Carbon Zero Canada - Free Carbon Calculator for Canadian citizens
Carbon Trading for Individuals? - article (Sep 2005) plus online forum at the website of the UK Sustainable Development Commission
Description of the RSA project on personal carbon trading - CarbonLimited
RSA CarbonLimited website
RSA Journal article What we must do to save the planet (June 2006)
Paragragh 2.84 of UK government's Energy Review (11 July 2006) announces study looking at personal carbon trading and other approaches to mobilising individuals
ZeroGHG - Personal carbon calculator allowing calculation of emissions for home, car and air travel. Provider of carbon offset services to Canadian individuals and corporations
Government to consider personal carbon allowances - press release by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (19 July, 2006)
Speech by David Miliband (19 July 2006) to the Audit Commission in which he mentions personal carbon trading
David Miliband's blog on personal carbon trading (19 July 2006) with over 80 comments from members of the public
Commentary: Your Own Personal Carbon Credits - Berkeley Daily Planet (1 Sep 2006)
Domestic Tradable Quotas: Fancy buying and selling your dirty habits? - Financial Times (9 Oct 2006)
Government scoping study on personal carbon trading - DEFRA (November 2006)
Zero Carbon Britain Report outlining how Britain could become carbon neutral by 2027, built around a framework of TEQs nationally and Contraction and Convergence internationally - Centre for Alternative Technology (July 2007)
Carbon Credit Report - East Bay Monthly

[edit] Tradable Energy Quotas (AKA Domestic Tradable Quotas)
David Fleming's website on Tradable Energy Quotas (including his free guide to TEQs, downloadable as a PDF)
Domestic Tradable Quotas (Climate Change) Bill - a Private Members Bill submitted to the UK Parliament in 2004
Tyndall Technical Report 39 - a detailed report on DTQs (December 2005)
David Boyle article looking back from 2021 to the introduction of TEQs in 2011 - All to gain on the carbon diet? (Feb 2006)
Tyndall Centre summary of DTQ research
Original DTQs website by David Fleming, now redirects visitors to the TEQs website