Carbon rationing is a way of allocating the amount of carbon emissions every individual and company can emit such that everybody gets their fair share.
With this system, people who have low emissions (typically those on low incomes who cannot afford foreign holidays or afford to buy expensive cars or houses) will receive additional income for their unused allocation; whilst those who have expensive, and carbon intensive, lifestyles, will have to pay more.
Because everyone in society gets an equal share, it is a fair system.
Carbon rationing is an important tool to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid climate chaos. It allows us to pursue a policy of ‘contraction and convergence’’ – first proposed by Aubrey Mayer – whereby carbon emissions drop rapidly to sustainable levels (contraction) and the difference in emissions between rich and poor within countries, and the difference in emissions between rich countries and poor countries is reduced (convergence).
By reducing the amount of carbon rations issued every year, the policy enforces the contraction.
Carbon rationing should not be confused with either carbon trading or carbon taxes.
The EU has a carbon trading scheme in place where the upper limit on emissions has been so high that, instead of making the big polluting companies pay for polluting, it has paid them for the privilege!
Carbon taxes are a similar dead end. They make products that generate pollution more expensive, but this simply punishes the poor who are on lower incomes. It can therefore reduce overall emissions, but does not do so in a fair way.
This winter has been the coldest for many years.
Gas and electricity prices have rocketed and fuel poverty has become a real issue once again. Gas and oil prices will continue to increase in the long-run as they become less available and more scarce (most of the gas burned in our homes in Scotland no longer comes from the North Sea, but instead comes from central Asia through a series of pipes).
Energy supply is controlled by a small number of private companies who can charge whatever they like because people have little alternative but to heat their homes to stay alive. Similarly, it is very difficult to get about without a car because public transport has become so expensive and because so many bus routes have been neglected.
For a carbon rationing policy to work and to retain its fairness, some key policies need to be implemented alongside it.
First, all homes in Scotland would need to be quickly brought up to the highest standards of sustainable heating and insulation. In some parts of Europe, ‘passivehaus’ standards have meant that housing doesn’t actually require any heating in addition to the body heat produced by its residents.
Imagine an insulation standard like that being implemented in Scotland! Without an insulation and heating policy, those living in the houses with the worst heating and insulation would end up using their whole carbon ration to keep themselves warm.
We support policies to put the highest standard of insulation and sustainable heating systems into every home in Scotland. This would mean that there would be no carbon cost to individuals or to the planet.
Second, free sustainable public transport systems would need to be put in place across all our towns and cities so that people are enabled to get rid of their cars and use social transport systems. Where this is much more difficult, as in some rural parts of Scotland, additional carbon allocations to avoid hardship caused by a lack of transport links would be necessary.
Carbon rationing would work in much the same way as ‘points cards’ used by supermarkets do at the moment. Any time a purchase is made of something which creates carbon pollution (e.g. petrol, electricity or food), the money cost and carbon cost would be charged.
The carbon costs would be covered by the carbon rationing received by everyone (perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis). For the richest in society, who want to buy outdoor patio heaters or other items which create huge carbon emissions, they would quickly run out of carbon rations and would either be prevented from creating the pollution or have to pay a large financial penalty for doing so.
They would have to pay those not using their allocation (the poorest), but the price and availability of unused allocations would be such that carbon emissions would fall rapidly.
Carbon rationing isn’t the answer to all of these problems, but it is an important way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a fair way.
In combination with the SSP’s policies on public ownership of energy companies, investment in insulation and housing, free public transport and improved public transport networks, a sustainable and more equal Scotland is possible.