Public opinion on the role of the individual in mitigating climate change often tends to be polarised; people may either feel that they need to do “more” to minimise their carbon footprints, or, conversely, they may feel that their individual effort is inconsequential in the global fight against climate change – that is, any effort by an individual to reduce their carbon emissions will simply be offset by someone else using up that carbon “space.” This is a classic example of the “tragedy of the commons.” How does one square this particular circle? Enter the week 6 Dining with Dinosaurs talk by Dr Tina Fawcett on her extensive research around personal carbon allowances and trading!
“Personal carbon trading” is the umbrella term for policy ideas including personal carbon budgets or personal carbon allowances, which aim to equitably and effectively limit the overall carbon emissions within a society by engaging individuals in the process. Personal carbon trading does not imply that only individuals have responsibilities; rather, it links the global limit for safe emissions to the atmosphere, with personal responsibility. It has been proposed in addition to the existing suite of policies encouraging energy efficiency, lower carbon fuels, fuel switching, and demand reduction. Personal carbon allowances first emerged as a concept in the late nineties, but the advent of the digital age and widespread use of smartphones and devices has revived its feasibility, given that many barriers to implementation (such as participation in allowance schemes, tracking carbon use, and trading) no longer exist.
The concept is straightforward: every adult individual can be allocated an equal allowance of carbon to use on personal transport and household energy use (to begin with). The allowance is mandatory, but can be traded – that is, individuals or households that exhaust their personal allowances within the period to which the mandate applies (for e.g. a year) could purchase more allowances from those who have not. Indeed, without trading, the personal cap would have to be set so high – to ensure most people could get the energy services they are accustomed to - that no significant carbon savings would be made. Allowances could be used, tracked and traded using smartphones or electronic cards. Allowances could also be reducing annually, in line with global climate goals, with reductions signaled in advance.
The devil lies as always, in the detail, or in this case the design of a personal carbon allowance scheme or programme – and this was the subject of much discussion. Our speaker used archetypal “dinosaur households” to explore complex trade-offs such as fairness and equity: would poorer households possibly end up worse off than richer households? (Yes, and there would need to be interventions to address this). How does one account for intergenerational equity? (Do we need annual or lifetime personal carbon allowances?) Why not use incentives to “live green” (e.g. tax alleviations) rather than impose constraints that have heterogenous impacts across income groups? Should we be worried about giving away our data?
The topic made for a perfect Reuben debate, given that it traversed all the College’s themes: Environmental Change (of course), AI and Machine Learning (the use of technology in implementation), Ethics and Values (fairness; justice) and Cellular Life (the effects of overindulgence and consumerism). It was also thought-provoking. For instance, in an alternate, imagined society, if we all had personal carbon allowances that applied not just to energy and transport but also, say, to food, would we all be opting for the vegan or vegetarian option at DwD? Food for thought (pun intended). Finally, we must not ignore the power of symbolism, which in this case would be the ability of a personal carbon allowance to engage people in a wider vision of mitigating one of the greatest risks to their collective future, far more effectively than say a carbon tax. Individual and household trials in the UK, Europe, and Australia appear to support allowances as a symbolic policy.
Ultimately, given the transgression of six out of the nine planetary boundaries necessary to preserve the stability and resilience of the Earth System, and alarmingly slow progress on climate change mitigation efforts worldwide, personal carbon allowances feel like an idea whose time will (need to) come. On the other hand, one can only hope that when this topic is inevitably revisited by distant future generations of Reubenites at Dining with Dinosaurs, it will be to discuss in retrospect, why in the end, personal carbon allowances were never needed.
