A Creative Idea from England

One proposal to control greenhouse gas emissions—individual carbon ration cards—is already part of the public discussion in England. New Statesman environmental writer Mark Lynas suggests that, as a kind of domestic cap-and-trade system, carbon cards should appeal both to the left and to the right: to the left, because they should help cut carbon emissions without hurting the poor as much as increased fuel taxes; to the right, because they could create a free market in carbon points while controlling emissions. Polly Toynbee, writing in the Guardian, suggests that carbon cards for transportation could be implemented quickly, although carbon cards for overall fuel usage (e.g., for heating and cooking) would take longer to set up.

The idea is simple and could probably be administered through the tax system:

• Each household would receive a fair share of carbon ration points, based on an overall carbon emissions goal for the country.
  
• In the early stages of the program, points would be used for transportation—fuel for cars would use up so many points per gallon, fuel for trains so many points per mile, and so on for all transportation that used fossil fuels.
• Families and individuals could use their carbon cards to track their own usage and how many points remained in their accounts.
  
• If a family needed additional carbon points, it could purchase them, either from families who did not need them, or, probably at a higher cost, from the carbon rationing authority.
• If a family did not need all its carbon points, it could either sell the excess to other families or receive a tax refund in exchange for the unused points.

Rationing has a bad name both in England and in other places, and especially in the United States. But carbon rationing on this model would be less problematic in many ways than proposals like high fuel taxes.

Fuel taxes, which are designed to increase fuel prices and discourage consumption, have two major flaws:

• Any tax which is high enough to cause drivers to cut back seriously is politically doomed. Drivers vote, and groups like English truck drivers, who effectively killed a fuel tax proposal from the Blair government a couple of years ago, organize and demonstrate against tax proposals; and
• Any tax which is high enough to cut fuel consumption is likely to hurt low-income drivers the most.

Carbon rationing avoids the second of these problems. By careful use of their share, low-income families might even make money from rationing (so could high-income families if they wished). Carbon cards would reward fuel users for efficiency, not punish them for buying the fuel they do use.

As to the politics of carbon cards, the situation would not be simple. No one likes to be told that there are limits to their ability to do what they wish. But in fact, in the future, there will be limits. The central question is not whether limits will exist, but how to implement them. Carbon cards are one idea that is worth considering.