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Personal carbon limit for everyone
By Nicholas Cecil, Evening Standard Last updated at 16:11pm on 11.12.07Every person in Britain would be given a "carbon limit" under radical government plans to limit emissions, it was announced today.
Everybody could be issued with a "carbon credit card" which they would swipe when buying petrol, paying their utility bills, purchasing food, or travelling.
People with lifestyles that are damaging to the environment - such as frequent fliers, motorists who drive gas-guzzling vehicles or people who live in large homes with poor insulation - would have to buy more carbon credits from greener individuals.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband floated the idea when he was Environment Secretary and the Government has launched a study into the practicalities of personalised carbon quotas.
Environment Minister Joan Ruddock told MPs the personal carbon trading scheme "is one of a number of potential long-term options being explored for making individuals better informed about, and involved in, tackling climate change".
An EU-wide carbon trading scheme already operates between businesses and the system is due to be extended to cover aviation in coming years.
The fight against climate change in the UK is set to face a new challenge with thousands of homes, particularly in the South-East, expected to be fitted with energy-consuming air conditioning as the country gets hotter.
Housing Minister Yvette Cooper told the all-party communities and local government committee that new building regulations would be drawn up to limit the impact of greater use of air conditioning.
Home owners doing loft conversions, extensions or other improvements could also be increasingly forced to make their properties less environmentally damaging. All new homes will have to be carbon neutral by 2016.
Ms Cooper said current predictions were for the South-East to be most affected by global warming, which will bring an increased risk of flooding and subsidence.
Reader views (15)
Will this "carbon credit card" include exhaling and decomposition after death? Those are two important parts of the whole "global warming" equation that cannot be forgotten!
How are you enjoying that Labour majority over there?
- Pam, Connecticut, USA
A superb idea, and a far better use of funds than a UK-wide identity card system. However, probably just as expensive - £10bn or so? And if you really do have £10bn to spend, is this the best use of £10bn to reduce CO2 emissions? There would seem to be other easy wins that could be explored first, such as a tax on each flight calculated as Flight Tax = (tons of CO2 emitted by your flight) X (current ETS price for a ton of CO2). Alternatively, phase out incandescent light bulbs by increasing the sales tax on them every year until they cost more than energy saving bulbs. There's plenty to do before we introduce the Carbon Identity Card!
- James Rowe, London, UK
You just wonder what the green dictatorship will come up with next.
- Gerry, Chatham Kent UK
How about we simply try to keep criminals in jail first?
- Trunk, US
This kind of nonsense is why I'm leaving the UK.
Bye bye UK!
- Will, London
And next they will want to tattoo a bar code on our foreheads - how much more interference from this overbearing Government can the average Brit take?
- Shirley, London
Another bonkers idea from a Govt. that has completely lost the plot.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
Another crackpot idea to be accompanied by a tax.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke
Here we go again. Nu Labour at its best trying to tell us what to do in our personal life.
- Bill, London
More bureaucracy and hypocrisy from this government of two-faced half-wits. If they believed in carbon-driven 'climate change' and rising sea levels they wouldn't be building a few million homes on the Thames flood plain. This is just an excuse to intimately meddle in ordinary people's lives, from the people that brought us ID cards and the DNA database.
- Eric Murphy, London, UK
What happens when someone has stolen or cloned your carbon credit card?
- Leon, London
What a great idea!
I would only have to swipe my card once when I purchased my one way ticket out of this ridiculous country!
- Ken D, East London
Why should purchasing food have anything to do with carbon emissions. How are they gonna know the origins of everything in my shopping basket for goodness sake?
- Isabel, Woking, England
What a waste of time!
- Jd, London
This government can't even get the basics right. They should get the police out onto the streets, empty the dustbins and shut up. This is far too complicated for them.
- Alan Tucker, London
