A carbon credit of your own

Swipe your card to sweep your carbon footstep

In the UK, there is quite a debate over how the carbon trading can be improved in terms of individual involvement. The latest contribution is a report, delivered to the Minister of Environment, in which different methods are compared. The minister has given the report a favourable reception in which he also dismisses some of the criticism that has been made. Critics have said that such systems should be complicated for individuals to handle, but the minister is pointing at the frequent use of loyalty cards used in business today; cards that tracks our transactions, accounts, bargain-prices and more! If companies and individuals can live with these, they should certainly be able to live with a "Carbon Card".

The report, however, draws attention to several complications that have to be carefully investigated before a launch. Many of them have to do with acceptance, both public and political, and some of them with interaction between systems. The theoretical attractiveness is, however, obvious. Such a system should address both the issue and the responsibility, giving people real freedom to make choices within the limits of our collective burden.

To begin with, the debate needs to be opened up to the entirety of Europe.