FUTURE CARBON: CREDIT CARDS

Ministers moot carbon credit cards
December 11, 2006 (Yahoo News UK/Ireland)

- People could be issued with personal carbon allowances which they would spend through a "carbon credit card", under plans being considered by…the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)…such cards, which would be used every time someone bought food, petrol, flights or paid for gas and electricity bills, could be in use within five years.
- Environment minister David Miliband told The Guardian that the details of the scheme still needed to be worked out, but stressed that "bold thinking is required because the world is in a dangerous place"…
- a study by the Centre for Sustainable Energy for his department…points to supermarket loyalty schemes, which log billions of transactions a year, as proof that people's actions could be tracked in a way that would allow a carbon scheme to work.

- Each citizen would be issued with a set amount of carbon emissions they could emit, which would be used up when going on holiday, buying energy and so on. Any credits left over could be sold off, and bought by someone who needed more than their quota…

AND, the Financial Times reported this:
- Some experts doubt the viability of an individual cap-and-trade scheme but Mr Miliband told The Guardian it had a "simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift".