27th May 2008: The Daily Mail :
Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.
The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.
Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.
Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven't used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.
Sunday, 3 June 2007, 19:19 GMT 20:19 UK
The carbon credit card
Imagine a world in which each one of us carries a card in our pocket which we use to record how much carbon we use whenever we make a purchase.
We'd all have an annual carbon allowance - those of us who make an effort to go green would end up using less than our full allowance and would be able to sell our carbon surplus to those of us who exceed our allowance.
Would a carbon credit card tempt you to walk instead?
The aim of such a scheme would be to give everyone an incentive to use less carbon.
Such an idea already exists within the European Union for large users of energy - power stations, heavy industrial plants and the like.
The more greenhouse gases a company puts into the atmosphere, the greater the danger it goes over its allowance and will be forced to buy carbon from companies which manage to cut their emissions.
David Milliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, is the government minister pushing the idea of emissions trading.
On Monday 4th June he heads off to the United States where he'll meet members of Congress and state governors.
But his biggest challenge, according to many environmentalists, will be to try to persuade the Bush administration to support radical measures to tackle climate change at this week's G8 summit of the world's richest nations in Germany.
Mark D'Arcy, sitting in for Carolyn Quinn, went to Mr Miliband's office to talk to him about personal carbon trading - and about his attitude to nuclear power.
But he began by putting to him that there seems little chance of getting a meaningful deal on climate change at the G8 - unless the Bush administration changes its attitude to climate change.
Monday December 11 2006
Every citizen would be issued with a carbon "credit card" - to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket - under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five years, according to a feasibility study commissioned by the environment secretary, David Miliband, and published today.
In an interview with the Guardian Mr Miliband said the idea of individual carbon allowances had "a simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift".
He acknowledged the proposal faced technical difficulties, but said ministers needed to seek ways of overcoming them.
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