Transcript Personal tradable allowances - IUCN Academy of Environmental Law

Examining
the ultimate translation
of the
carbon footprint:
Personal Tradable Carbon Allowances
Prof. dr. Marjan Peeters
6th Annual Colloquium of the IUCN Academy of
Environmental Law
The role of citizens in climate change policies
Traditionally, environmental law deals mainly
with industries and commercial activities
The climate change problem however forces us
to consider the role of consumer behaviour
Question:
How should greenhouse gas emissions caused
by citizens be regulated?
The idea of personal trading rests
on the following fundamental
concepts:
Per capita emissions
Carbon footprint
Per capita emissions
Notion of equity and equality as expressed by
Edith Brown Weiss:
As beneficiaries of the planetary legacy,
all members of the present generation are
entitled to equitable access to and use of
the legacy
-> Contraction and Convergence as a global
model for reducing carbon emissions
- Each person has an equal right to carbon emissions
- Determination of the maximum acceptable amount
of greenhouse gases, with a
- Transition to the needed reduction
- To be achieved in 2050
- Allocation of allowances to states
- Trade among states
“The international climate regime should be
based on legitimate principles of equity, such
as long-term convergence of emission levels
per capita in the various countries.”
Joint statement by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of
the Republic, and
Mrs Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany,
9 June 2008
Carbon footprint
Instrumental application of the per
capita emission:
It shows how many planets are needed
for our carbon emissions
Critical points
• Domestic emissions, or domestic
consumption?
• Single Focus, what about side effects
• Relationship with energy intensity and
relationship with economic welfare
• Accounting problems
Personal carbon allowances
Ultimate regulatory translation
of
the per capita idea and
the carbon footprint
Personal tradable allowances
Basic idea:
1)National cap, and budgets for sectors, inclusing
households;
2) To allocate carbon credits to citizens,
3) Obligation to surrender credits when purchasing
certain products and services, like energy and
transport
The idea of a carbon credit card
Growing support
European Parliament Committee for the
Environment, Public Health, and Safety,
where it considered
`to develop a citizen-based approach, by
recommending a future option being a
system of personal tradable quotas’
And...
Several design options
- Coverage
(only households, or business sectors too?)
- Recipients
(adults and children?)
- Scope
(which carbon emissions, which products and
services?)
Differential treatment, for instance by giving
extra allowances to
• Disabled persons
• Elderly people
• Parents with children
Poor people
• Personal trading will inevitably highlight
existing inequalities of income and
opportunity
• As with any other policy, these inequalities
will need to be identified, assessed, and,
where appropriate, compensated for.
Taxation is less preferable
• Cap and trade is forcing behavioural change
much earlier compared to a tax,
Moreover:
• With a tax, rich people have no cap, can
simply pay the tax to the government
• With carbon credits, they have a cap and
need to buy from other citizens
Technical issues
• The Committee believes that they can be solved.
“Personal carbon trading might be the kind of radical
measure needed to bring about behavioural change”
Further research questions
• How does personal carbon trading fit to
existing and alternative policies, like the EU
ETS?
• What about other models, like the
revolutionary option proposed by the Irish
NGO Feasta, meaning to allocate all available
allowances to citizens?