A Carbon Credit Card?
June 7, 2007
How would a carbon credit card work? The UK’s Sustainable Development Commission has an informative website on this issue, excerpts of which are shown below.
Imagine the scenario…it is 2015, and you are buying fuel for your hybrid car.
You go to pay, and are told that your purchase will cost £100, plus 50 carbon credits.
Thankfully, you have just received your regular top-up of free carbon credits into your online carbon account, which already has a healthy balance due to your low carbon consumption. So you hand over your carbon debit card, and the credits are electronically taken from your account in real-time. This saves you having to buy the units at the point of sale, which at current market prices would cost you £25.
Sounds far-fetched? Well maybe not. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) recently recommended that the [UK] Government should seriously consider the possibility of extending ‘cap and trade’ schemes for carbon dioxide (CO2) across the whole economy, to cover individuals, as well as business and the public sector. This would enable us to achieve guaranteed, annual cuts in our national ‘carbon budget’, and eventually reduce our emissions by at least 60% by 2050 – meeting the Government’s long term target.
Individuals would be given a free allocation of carbon credits, on a per capita basis, which they would use to pay for purchases of electricity, petrol and gas. People that are low carbon consumers would be able to sell their surplus credits on the carbon market, whilst those with a high consumption would have to buy.
The cost of carbon would therefore become included in everyday decision-making, which would promote energy efficiency and behavioural change, whilst encouraging the development of new low carbon technologies.
Given the intransigence among governments on this issue, why not empower individual consumers to act as an engine of change?
November 1, 2007 at 1:49 pm
[...] Ne nous moquons pas trop vite, cependant. Car ces compensations volontaires et de manière générale toutes les actions entreprises aujourd’hui de manière libre, démocratique, dans un souci de juste répartition du fardeau entre les couches sociales, entre les pays et entre les générations nous préservent de scénario bien plus noirs, où chacun aurait sa carte carbone pour organiser le grand rationnement. [...]
November 9, 2007 at 7:14 pm
[...] Les compensations volontaires (et de manière générale toutes les actions entreprises aujourd’hui de manière libre, démocratique, dans un souci de juste répartition du fardeau entre les couches sociales, entre les pays et entre les générations) nous préservent de scénario bien plus noirs, où chacun aurait sa carte carbone pour organiser le grand rationnement. [...]
April 7, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I don’t think college student should have their own credit cards, unless their parents give them or they only make money for themselves.
April 7, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The idea would be very environmental friendly, but making it into practice without any commercial benefit would probably be somewhat difficult to execute. It is like squeezing in those carbon credits into global currency system as carbon credits in some country may have different price with others.