"A radical plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions by rationing the carbon use of individuals is being drawn up by government officials. The scheme could force consumers to carry a swipe card that records their personal carbon allocation, with points knocked off each time they buy petrol or tickets for a flight.
Under the scheme, all UK citizens from the Queen down would be allocated an identical annual carbon allowance, stored as points on an electronic card similar to Air Miles or supermarket loyalty cards. Points would be deducted at point of sale for every purchase of non-renewable energy. People who did not use their full allocation, such as families who do not own a car, would be able to sell their surplus carbon points into a central bank.
High energy users could then buy them - motorists who had used their allocation would still be able to buy petrol, with the carbon points drawn from the bank and the cost added to their fuel bills. To reduce total UK emissions, the overall number of points would shrink each year.
David Miliband, the environment secretary, is keen to set up a pilot scheme to test the idea, and has asked officials from four government departments to report on how it could be done."
Consider the practicalities: the need for some kind of central authority or bank to supervise the mammoth task of issuing (and keeping records of) 30 million cards, the vast computer system required with links to every petrol station and air ticket agency, the scope for fraud, the question of what to do for people with children or who live in rural areas and who therefore have greater fuel needs, how (or whether) to exclude business travel from the arrangements, what to do about tourists from abroad and so on and on and on.
Does anyone in government think nowadays?
1 comment:
Actually I would consider such a system to be obvious, unavoidable, and definitely in the pipeline some time. It would not concentrate on carbon use however, but on reducing a person's overall environmental footprint. It occurred to me as such when I was deciding, while pregnant, whether to invest in reuseable nappies. I discovered that every disposable nappy ever made still exists, and that each baby generates about a ton of nappy waste in its nappy using life time. That tonne of waste per baby is clogging up some landfill site and creating problems for some urban planner today, and will create problems for us all, particularly in my daughters' and possible grandchildrens' lifetimes. It would make certain sense then for some planner to create a lifetime 'e-footprint' point scheme, assessing among other things how much waste you have generated in your lifetime. Developing world babies who have never used nappies would be a ton of points in front immediately. Assessed from the environmental viewpoint, and considering what a bother it will be when the clean air starts running out, the necessary computer system seems less of a hassle than ATM machines and the telephone system, or the UK benefits system, or indeed the cash money system. How else to generate equality between the people who're using all the resources and the ones paying the price? Unless everyone in the developed world is just agreeing now, in a de facto manner, to kill off everyone south of the equator, in which case let me know the cut off date so I can move my family. And my friends. And their friends. And my friends' families. In the UK they're planning to introduce ID cords with iris details ... it's only going to take ten years of planning or so. My kids will never believe it never existed. What would your gran have said to the idea of getting money from your account in the US from a hole in the wall in Kenya? With no advance notice!
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