Personal tradeable carbon credits?

michaels

So their was a recent suggestion that frequent flyers should pay an extra carbon tax which got me thinking.

Why don't we work out a national carbon budget and then share it equally between everyone including children.

Then out of our budgets we could 'buy' our carbon needs for utilities, transport and international travel. Those who have extra could sell theirs to those who need more.

Then choosing a green energy tariff would cost fewer credits, using less fuel (driving carefully, electric car, public transport) would cost fewer credits. Want to fly to Australia? Save up credits or buy more.

This sounds like a really progressive / fair approach to me. Carbon emissions are basically something we should all have equal rights to and we can gradually reduce the allowance to meet our climate change targets.

mmmmikey

I love the idea which is something I've pondered on too. Sadly though I think the complexity of making it work in that way would make it very difficult to achieve.


I've lent more towards thinking that taxation linked towards carbon usage would be a possible way to go. For example, how about taxing food according to the air or road miles it has travelled to get to the shelves?


One way or the other, I would certainly support any workable system that had the effect of focussing minds on carbon emissions.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

So their was a recent suggestion that frequent flyers should pay an extra carbon tax which got me thinking.

Why don't we work out a national carbon budget and then share it equally between everyone including children.

Then out of our budgets we could 'buy' our carbon needs for utilities, transport and international travel. Those who have extra could sell theirs to those who need more.

Then choosing a green energy tariff would cost fewer credits, using less fuel (driving carefully, electric car, public transport) would cost fewer credits. Want to fly to Australia? Save up credits or buy more.

This sounds like a really progressive / fair approach to me. Carbon emissions are basically something we should all have equal rights to and we can gradually reduce the allowance to meet our climate change targets.

Why?

Carbon is already taxed
You drive more you pay more fuel duty
You buy more stuff or more gas you pay more VAT

Plus it's complicated for no reason
What do you do for a particularly cold winter
Let poor people die in the cold because they can't afford the spiked carbon credits?

Plus it's a tax on the poor because they are least likely to be able to afford additional insulation, brand new boiler, EVs etc

Instead of wasting time and energy on such a scheme why not just tackle the next big challenge which is heating. Have the government regulate a cheap heat tariff and let people switch to electric heaters. Have the government sub insulation. Have the government upgrade the 5 million social homes etc

We don't need yet another layer of paper shuffling

Re the evil frequent flyers it's a terrible idea to make that uneconomical
People fly face to face as that's how business is done
Smartphone calls or video exist but it's not the same as face to face human interaction
If we screw our businesses over by making that more difficult we will suffer as a country

Plus as the cheerleaders keep telling me, wind and PV is now cheaper than fossil fuels so comes to reason we don't have to do much they will dominate once below FF costs

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

I love the idea which is something I've pondered on too. Sadly though I think the complexity of making it work in that way would make it very difficult to achieve.

I've lent more towards thinking that taxation linked towards carbon usage would be a possible way to go. For example, how about taxing food according to the air or road miles it has travelled to get to the shelves?

One way or the other, I would certainly support any workable system that had the effect of focussing minds on carbon emissions.

The airlines are not charities they charge more for longer flights and distances

I don't think this is necessarily a good idea but a cow tax might just about get through although it will cost some political points to the party that tries to do it

Something like £5/KG

Result will be more chicken and non meat eaten and a lot less beef eaten

Even if beef consumption goes down 50% Still brings in £3 billion a year
Use this £3 billion in the first year to gift 12 million electric scooters mostly to kids aged 10-22
With 3 million remaining for shared fleet useage in urban areas.

Subsequent £3 billion a year from this cow tax can go on insulation grants and heat pump grants or more offshore wind

GreatApe

Plus why would you want it to be a personal carbon tradeable token?

You want 67 million accounts where people have a carbon token bank account alongside their normal British pound bank accounts

How do you imagine this to work
Every item has a carbon cost
And the person needs to both pay the £poubds£ and a second 'currency' of carbon tokens??

How does that make sense?
What would happen is businesses would still charge JUST pounds
But would have to adjust the cost of things daily/hourly or even by the minute to take into account the carbon token exchange rate

And people as soon as they got their carbon time s would exchange them for pounds and live their normal life

In effect you've created a European Trading Scheme but not just for power stations and bug businesses but for all businesses. Why not just do that directly? Why do this indirectly?

What you are suggesting in a long winded way is to extend the current European carbon trading system to all sectors. Sure that can be done

Not sure it's necessarily wise
But it can be done
And it's better than issuing a defacto secondary currency system by sending every citizen a carbon credit card not to mention the cost of setting us and administering such a system

Maybe do a Russian oligarch and go round buying the kids carbon credits off them in exchange for a packet of crisps

Martyn1981

I love the idea, but like Mikey have always thought it would be too hard to administer, but at the very least perhaps a carbon flight budget, after which costs go up, and if you don't fly, you can sell them.

The trick here I suppose is to get the right balance of carrot and stick. If leccy sources are properly carbon taxed, then greener tariffs would benefit, and government spending on vehicular leccy infrastructure (plus the company tax breaks etc) are other sources of carrots.

I've mentioned this before, and I suspect it's currently impractical, but if airline fuel had to be 100% bio, or a fair carbon offset (tricky one that) deployed for all trips, and mandatory, that might at least help?

JKenH

I would be more than happy to have a personal carbon tax to trade as I have only flown 5 times in my entire life - it’s warm enough here and getting warmer. I like my cars but do little annual mileage in each and will hopefully be going electric once someone builds a small electric car with decent range to replace our Picanto. (I think the e-golf is reasonably priced but just a bit too big for a runabout.)

Couple that with GA’s cheap rate electric (wind powered) heating to replace the oil boiler and I will be a happy man.

Those who use the most CO2 should pay the most as we do with fuel tax and VED - but some might say that’s a selfish view from a ‘rentier’ and would not sit well with a working family who enjoy taking their kids on a holiday to the med a couple of times a year.

There - was that pro or anti AGW or maybe just a personal observation?

michaels

Thanks for all the thoughts. Agree it is probably too complex e end though I was suggesting g we limit it to the biggies, utilities, transport and aviation (I know food is a biggie but it is my h harder as transaction numbers are my h bigger and less centralised.

Why I like it is that I can see limiting co2 as being a public good and if we can afford a limited amount of emissions then the idea of sharing these fairly between everyone seems ideal rather than people just grabbing as much as they want. Plus making people face the true cost of their actions is the best way to drive behaviour.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

Thanks for all the thoughts. Agree it is probably too complex e end though I was suggesting g we limit it to the biggies, utilities, transport and aviation (I know food is a biggie but it is my h harder as transaction numbers are my h bigger and less centralised.

Why I like it is that I can see limiting co2 as being a public good and if we can afford a limited amount of emissions then the idea of sharing these fairly between everyone seems ideal rather than people just grabbing as much as they want. Plus making people face the true cost of their actions is the best way to drive behaviour.

You can just place a national carbon limit
And auction off the credits to business

This way you have maybe a few hundred primary businesses deal with it rather than 67 million citizens and a million businesses

The method would be easy
You'd just set a target
X amount of carbon
Then reduce X over time

Any business which wants to import or produce fossil fuels in the UK would need to buy these tokens and the tokens fall over time so the amount of fossil fuels being used in the UK falls

The same result but much less complex

Of course the problem is everything will get more expensive as everything uses fossil fuels


The alternative is a fossil fuel tax
I think that's better than a hard cap/token
Because otherwise seasonal variations and other changes can cause unintended consequence
Like a particularly cold winter

TBH neither is necessary or desirable
Better to just slowly deploy wind farms and electrify heating and improve efficiency

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

Thanks for all the thoughts. Agree it is probably too complex e end though I was suggesting g we limit it to the biggies, utilities, transport and aviation (I know food is a biggie but it is my h harder as transaction numbers are my h bigger and less centralised.

Why I like it is that I can see limiting co2 as being a public good and if we can afford a limited amount of emissions then the idea of sharing these fairly between everyone seems ideal rather than people just grabbing as much as they want. Plus making people face the true cost of their actions is the best way to drive behaviour.

Certainly seems like a good idea, even if it's not viable.

Regarding your last sentence, on the commercial side, since Greenpeace (I think) started rating big companies, said companies have done a lot to reduce their CO2 'share', which might be greenwashing, but as I often say, a wins a win.

Martyn1981

Sorry for the diversion. But here you go, it was Greenpeace:

Corporations & Renewables: Taking The Bull By The Horns

Private companies are the main end-consumers of electricity. According to an International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) report, although around two-thirds of the world’s electricity is consumed by the commercial and industrial sector, not even 5% of the total electricity demand in these sectors is actively sourced through renewable energy sources. Large IT and telecom companies are at the forefront of the development. Almost all these tech giants have renewables on their agenda — some of them, such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple, are even currently covering 100% of their power consumption by renewables.

However, this change of heart by these companies has not come about voluntarily. Their significantly growing electricity consumption attracted Greenpeace’s attention almost a decade ago. Since 2010, the environmental NGO has been tracking the renewable energy efforts of leading IT and telecom companies and published in a cycle of three years a media-effective report that created immense public attention and put serious pressure on their management. In the end, the campaign ultimately forced these corporates to become renewable energy front-runners.

And the other side of the coin, going green to save money:

Honda & Nike Secure New Renewable Energy Supplies

If renewable energy is as bad as the fossil fuel industry claims, why are so many major corporations signing up for renewable energy deals? Are their leaders unable to do simple arithmetic? Are they squandering mountains of corporate cash just so they can brag about how “green” their operations are? No. Businesses have not suddenly taken leave of their senses. If renewable energy didn’t pencil out, as the like to say in the parlance of accountants, they wouldn’t do it.

Honda has just inked two virtual power plant agreements that will cover more than 60% of its electricity usage in North America. Together they will allow Honda to fully offset all the carbon intensive electricity it gets from electrical grids in Ohio, Indiana, and Alabama, three states where coal power is still dominant.

Starting in fall of 2020, Honda will purchase 530,000 MWh a year from 120 MW of wind power generated by the Boiling Springs Wind Farm in Oklahoma, a development of the energy company E.ON. Then in fall of 2021, Honda will secure an additional 482,000 MWh a year from 200 MW of solar power generated from a Texas solar facility.

[Note - there is some criticism in the US where companies consume, for example coal generation in one state, whilst equaling it out with RE gen in another state. It's a start, but not necessarily perfect, yet.]