Friday, 11th December 2009
Give everyone a carbon card
As thousands of delegates look forward to their second week of talks in Copenhagen, the world holds its breath. Lashed by storms and floods, Scotland knows that the spectre of global warming is very real.
But even as oil prices creep back towards $80 a barrel, we queue at the petrol pumps and we burn gas and electricity in our homes, offices and factories, like there was no tomorrow. And if we go on like this, the experts warn, there may indeed be ‘no tomorrow’. Our gas guzzling habits and the vast quantities of CO2 we emit have caused massive environmental damage.
CO2 is almost entirely emitted as a result of the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. Around 40 per cent of energy emissions currently arise from households. There are therefore few better ways to help the environment than lowering the fuel bills for homes and dwellings. So energy efficiency must be a top priority. Don't fill the kettle to the brim before you boil it. Don't leave your TV on standby when you are out. Switch off lights when you leave the room.
On the other hand offices, factories and vehicles produce much of the remaining greenhouse gases. Petrol and diesel engines are major offenders, but virtually every city, town and village is now clogged with vehicles from dawn to dusk. Motorways and even country roads are routinely grid-locked, with lorries, buses and cars, often reduced to a nose-to-tail crawl, spewing forth vast quantities of toxic exhaust fumes into the atmosphere. Even the skies above are facing traffic congestion. Aviation emissions are set to double from 1990 to 2010 from jets criss-crossing EU airspace.
In the face of apocalyptic predictions about global warming, it is astonishing that we are still dragging our feet when it comes to taking action. We need innovation and lateral thinking if we are to tackle this problem effectively.
Carbon card systems should be considered as a means of reducing emissions from all forms of energy use.
Under this scheme, every individual citizen and organisation would be issued free of charge with a CO2 emissions quota, with 40 per cent going to individual citizens by way of a carbon card. The remaining 60 per cent would be auctioned off by the Member State Governments to business and industry, with the proceeds used for other environmental control measures. The EU would allocate an annual carbon budget for each Member State. This budget would be reduced year on year until we reach the target set by the Copenhagen summit.
Citizens would be issued with a ‘carbon card’, providing them with a free entitlement to a set number of carbon units per year. This carbon card would be swiped every time they buy petrol, diesel, coal, gas or electricity. It would be swiped each time you buy an airline or train ticket. 60 per cent of adults are below-average emitters and would be able to sell their surplus units; it would likely be popular with the majority of the public. Gas-guzzling 4 by 4's would disappear from city streets overnight. People who cycle to work would have a windfall new source of income with carbon units to sell.
Everyone would become, quite literally, environmental-stakeholders, carrying their share of national emissions on their carbon card, surrendering units to their gas and electricity suppliers by direct debit and flogging their surplus units on-line.
A carbon card system across the 27 Member States of the EU would quickly have a dramatic impact on controlling CO2 emissions. The market would be utilised to tackle a serious environmental problem, while ensuring equality remained at the heart of the system. Personal carbon quotas would enable every citizen to play a part in cutting CO2 emissions, thus helping to avoid the increasing cycle of floods, storms and landslides that are the hallmark of global warming.
