Personal Carbon Trading could help to tackle Climate Change

Reposted from: http://edge.org/q2007/q07_6.html
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JAMES GEARY
Former Europe editor, Time Magazine; Author, The World in a Phrase

PCT Will Allow People To Take Individual Action to Tackle a Global Problem

I am optimistic that 'purchasing power' can be brought to bear on the problem of climate change. For too long climate change has been one of those huge, complex, difficult issues people felt they could safely ignore. The science was complicated and there were persuasive voices arguing that it was all a myth anyway. Plus, climate change was just too abstract to get worked up about. 'Sure Bangladesh and the Netherlands might be aquatic theme parks in a hundred years, but yesterday my job was outsourced to India. Which problem is more urgent?' Now, few people seriously dispute the science, and climate change is having tangible effects on people's lifestyles. I may not care what happens to island nations and fragile ecosystems on the other side of the planet, but I'll be damned if my annual skiing vacation is going to be ruined for lack of snow.

People are more informed and concerned, but they still feel like there's not much they can do. A survey carried out earlier this year by the U.K. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) found that 70% of respondents said they believed their lifestyles had an impact on climate change; only 40% of those people said they thought they could do something to change that. There are two basic motivations for human beings to alter their behavior: fear and self-interest. I'm not optimistic that will change. I am optimistic, however, that people are now genuinely scared by climate change and that an appeal can be made to their self-interest in the form of Personal Carbon Trading (PCT).

The European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), launched in 2005, has been a qualified success. The system allocates a set of emissions credits (representing the amount of carbon a firm is permitted to produce) to industrial installations. There is an effort now under way to extend the scheme to the airline industry. If a company doesn't use all of its credits, it can sell them to other companies that have exceeded their own quotas. The idea is to make it expensive for corporations to emit the greenhouse gases that cause climate change while at the same time making it financially attractive for them to limit those emissions. Several organizations are now experimenting with applying this idea to individuals.

PCT would be the economic equivalent of microgeneration; instead of every person generating his or her own power through solar panels or wind turbines, each person would generate his or her own carbon portfolio. PCT would work on the same principles as the E.U. system, but individuals instead of industries would be allotted carbon credits, which they could sell, trade or use as they see fit. PCT could also have potential social welfare benefits: Children could be given carbon credits at birth, which would then (hopefully) increase in value, so that by the time they're adults they could cash some of them in to fund education, professional training or a first home purchase. PCT would allow people to take individual action to tackle a global problem, thus easing the existential angst so many of us feel when confronting something this immense. We could help save the planet and make money in the process! What's not optimistic about that?