Two Degrees 16 - Carbon Rationing continued
First Broadcast: 13 February 2007
Featuring:
- Richard Starkey
CARBON RATIONING - Your questions answered
In five years time, we could all have an equal carbon allowance to buy our
electricity and fuel with. This would help us play our part as an industrial
nation in bringing global carbon dioxide emissions down rapidly to a
relatively safe level. In a follow-up to last weeks interview with Mayer
Hillman, Phil England puts some of your concerns and questions about carbon rationing (or tradeable energy quotas) to Richard Starkey of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
How does Mayer Hillman's scheme differ from David Fleming's?
How does personal carbon trading compare to a carbon tax?
Would the scheme make people more carbon conscious?
Would the scheme allow the rich to continue their energy profligate lifestyles?
Is there a danger that the scheme could be weakened by allowing carbon
offsetting?
How costly would the scheme be to set up and run?
Would the scheme encourage a black market?
How could energy used in the manufacture of products (embedded energy) be accounted for?
Under the part of the scheme that relates to corporations would buy-out
clauses such as the problematic Clean Development Mechanism be included which would render the scheme ineffective?
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions or comments: Alex Smith (Radio Ecoshock, Canada), Naomi Fowler (freelance radio producer), Tam Dougan (Network for Alternative Technology and Technoloy Assessment), Mark Aitken (producer of ResonanceFM’s I Can Hear The Grass Grow), Brian Ross (Stop Stansted Expansion), Roger Levett (Levett-Therivel Sustainability Consultants), Jonathan Essex (Sustainable Redhill).
“The urgency with which we must make the transition to a low-carbon pathway leaves no option but to instigate a radical and immediate programme of demand management.” - Living Within A Carbon Budget (Tyndall Centre, 2006)
Links:
A Modest Proposal to Save the Planet (Mayer Hillman, The Independent)
<http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-hillman280504.htm>
A Rough Guide to Individual Carbon Trading (DEFRA)
<http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/pca/pdf/pca
-scopingstudy.pdf>
Domestic Tradeable Quotas (Tyndall Centre)
<http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme2/final_reports/t3_22.pdf>
Available Audio
2768-1-20070213-the_two_degrees_show-16 – Listen Online | Download .mp3 (27.19 MB)