Could Personal 'Carbon Accounts' Decelerate Climate Change?

(Credit: Shutterstock) A recent call from British Member's of Parlaiment to put a 25 pence levy on disposable coffee cups, and bans on plastic products cropping up across the country, show that the UK is getting serious about tackling collective individual behavior which threatens the environment. Large-scale programs aimed at changing people’s behavior are rare – but they do happen. Take Britain’s various carrier bag charges, for example, which led to plastic bag use in England falling by 80 percent in just one year. But while these initiatives are definitely needed, we need to look at other, broader, solutions too. That’s why, in October 2017, the Welsh Assembly supported a feasibility study to look at piloting an environmental behavioral policy across Wales: personal carbon accounts. Personal carbon accounts are a very simple idea: each month the government adds free carbon points to each person’s carbon account. The number you get is typically calculated using factors such as car usage and the type of house you live in. Every time petrol, diesel, electricity, gas or heating oil is purchased, a carbon debit card is used and the account balance reduced. There is no limit to the amount of fuel a person can buy, but if the points run out, the price of the fuel would be increased according to the price of extra points. So if you start with 100 points and use them all up, you would automatically buy say, five extra points, when filling up the car to use on that purchase. On the other hand, if you only used 85 of your 100 points, the extra 15 points could be sold on to other account holders. It seems like an easy-to-use initiative that could yield results. Yet in 2008 a previous government idea to use carbon allowances was dropped – so what is to say it will work 10 years on? To explain the logic behind the account, we need to look at the very nature of human behavior and why initiatives such as the carrier bag charge worked so well to change our minds.