A Just Response to Climate Change: Personal Carbon Allowances and the Normal‐Functioning Approach

One of the normative aspects of climate change that has received relatively little attention from philosophers is the proposal that states reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by issuing “personal carbon allowances” (PCAs)—also sometimes called “domestic tradable quotas” (DTQs), or “tradable energy quotas” (TEQs)1—to each of their citizens. According to this proposal, citizens would be required to surrender PCAs in order to engage in various greenhouse gas emitting activities. The number of PCAs issued each year would decline, so as to ensure a year-on-year reduction in national greenhouse gas emissions. One version of the proposal holds that a supranational system of PCAs could provide a global solution to climate change, with everyone on the planet receiving PCAs equivalent to a per capita share of global emissions. While a supranational system of PCAs could provide a global solution to climate change, it would be extremely difficult to implement a supranational system of PCAs, and unrealistic to expect global leaders to sign up to such a system.2 On the other hand, a domestic version of the proposal suggests an attractive way for states to share out emissions among their own citizens, however emissions are to be shared out between states. The proposal domestically to issue PCAs was first developed in the 1990s by Mayer Hillman and David Fleming.3 More recently, the proposal has been further developed by Richard Starkey and Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,4 and promoted in popular books by Mayer Hillman and Tina Fawcett, and by George Monbiot.5 Support for the proposal to issue PCAs has been particularly strong among civil society groups, although the proposal is also being taken seriously at government level.6 A recent survey showed PCAs to be the most favored method for reducing national emissions among respondents randomly selected from the UK population.7 The Royal Society for the Arts project CarbonLimited recently piloted the use of Internet-based models of PCAs.8 While PCAs could in theory be used by all countries to regulate their national emissions, the focus of the present paper will be on the fair implementation of a scheme of PCAs in the developed world, and most of the examples will be drawn from the developed world context. This is for two principal reasons. First, because developed countries already have in place most of the political, social, and economic institutions necessary for the effective functioning of a system of PCAs. Second, because the countries that are committed by the Kyoto Protocol to making significant short-term cuts in their national greenhouse gas emissions—the so-called “Annex One countries”—are all developed countries. Three main considerations motivate the use of PCAs rather than alternative policy instruments such as tax or industrial quotas. First, an oft-cited benefit of quota-based approaches in general (including both PCAs and industrial quotas) is that quota-based approaches allow policymakers to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions will not exceed a particular cap.9 This consideration provides only a limited reason to prefer quota-based approaches, however, since a tax-based approach could also be configured in such a way so as to approximate a cap on emissions. For example, a cap could be approximated by having marginal tax rates increase as an agent's emissions increase, such that emissions become progressively more expensive and eventually—provided that tax rates are high enough—prohibitively expensive. Second, it is sometimes argued that PCAs, implemented in an appropriate manner, will serve to motivate citizens to “do their bit” in the belief that they are contributing fairly to a larger effort to combat climate change.10 The point here is not merely that citizens will be motivated to reduce their emissions: This outcome could be achieved just as well by a tax-based approach. Rather, the point is that agents' motivation to reduce their emissions is less likely under a system of PCAs to be entirely economic. The economic motivation would be supplemented by the additional moral motivation accompanying the belief that one is contributing one's fair share to the burden of discharging a collective responsibility. Nevertheless, from the point of view of averting the worst that climate change threatens, one might reasonably respond that it does not especially matter whether the motivation to reduce emissions is provided by economic reasons or moral reasons: the important thing is simply that we do reduce our emissions. The third and most persuasive reason to adopt PCAs over alternative schemes is that PCAs allow policymakers to be much more sensitive to issues of fairness. Alternative schemes like tax incentives and industrial quotas force consumers to pay the costs of reducing emissions in direct proportion to their purchases of emission-dependent goods, thereby linking access to emission-dependent goods solely to ability to pay. A suitably designed system of PCAs, on the other hand, would allow policymakers to ensure that emission-dependent goods are distributed not merely in accordance with ability to pay, but in a manner sensitive to issues of fairness. This consideration, it seems to me, provides the strongest case for adopting a system of PCAs over alternative schemes. One of the questions that I will consider in this paper is the whether PCAs be the of I have just the strongest case for PCAs over alternative schemes like industrial quotas and is ability to access to emission-dependent goods from ability to might that I already committed to the view that PCAs not be PCAs are tradable access to emission-dependent goods would be by ability to it is under a scheme of tradable PCAs, access to emission-dependent goods would be to ability to pay. industrial quotas and a scheme of tradable PCAs, access to emission-dependent goods would not be by ability to pay, since the of PCAs would also a in access to emission-dependent has little but is at of PCAs, have as much access to emission-dependent goods as an with of is PCAs. The of PCAs to the but it is not at all that the of access to emission-dependent goods would be since an PCAs would be by that in for PCAs. an whether PCAs be One PCAs because they to being committed to the view that PCAs not be a system of PCAs, is not the only consideration to be taken and for reasons of and most of PCAs, and Anderson would their use only to energy and on and consumers would not be required to use PCAs to other goods, because the and of their on of the be a to at the of it is that emissions in the of other goods be by other for by the of to the that or provide with than used in industrial schemes like the from have as a of Nevertheless, in developed countries at energy and for a share of national emissions, so the emissions by other PCAs would be a of of the has been on the aspects of a scheme of PCAs, for example, on the emissions in various of an for to be on the aspects of PCAs. For the in PCAs, most greenhouse gas emissions to focus on the of for emissions between states. is important in as we will of the normative in the of such will also be to the domestic implementation of a system of PCAs. is a significant this paper to as aspects of an system of PCAs have of moral that do not and between issues from by the of among for example, have of and they have that with of from they have of and with although of the normative to the case be to of the domestic we that will in to both questions the of PCAs be two First, are questions to PCAs to Second, are questions carbon to out PCAs an surrender in order to a particular emission-dependent the focus of this paper will be on the first of I to a the in order to a in our that is to I a on the by the to agents' for the greenhouse gas emissions in collective The is by the of an a and the is only be required to surrender as PCAs as would have been on a in all that it was be required to surrender PCAs to more on and suggests that we be by the that an be required to surrender more PCAs for to a more than a less but not for being a more for reasons their our be sensitive to but not to for example, an a a with more than an less to be on the it seems fair that be required to surrender more PCAs for than an purchases an an books on a to at the of to be not be required to surrender more PCAs than an books on a in all that the out to be an approach would both the moral of a system of PCAs and the incentives by the an has a in the PCAs provide an to the are of to be The further and they will be only as we will they in with a to and our moral fairly to implement a system of PCAs. that I will not questions we the burden of of climate change or of to to a While it is to a system of PCAs with the of to the of climate example, by PCAs and the on or would be to do the that we to such a system of PCAs, we to linking the of the burden of discharging our collective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the of the burden of discharging our collective to the of climate we not two since moral are likely to in each are likely to a be more significant the costs of and order to we PCAs, we to we be their at I will that are two that motivate a with the of PCAs. are to both in popular of PCAs, it is important that they be since they have for the of PCAs. 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This is the proposal by the main and of PCAs, Fawcett, and Starkey The proposal is at the in the among proposal that the emissions of all states on an per capita for each and on this proposal emissions so in order to per capita emissions over the high are the proposal has received so much as an important in because the proposal that all have been up that is by received more than their fair been While most such as have this the proposal has been as be up to other be up other also be up we the more general proposal as so it that be shared out seems to be a strong and in of the more general the of the proposal, of main that the proposal it For the proposal seems we consider the of as a of their would more PCAs than other in order to at might of by in energy rather than by out such an approach would be more in the of the of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. for example, pay for to be in thereby with to their PCAs. it will not be for the government to of by in energy For example, an in a of the with a particularly climate emission-dependent energy to however well the for PCAs, that in this is the of rather than a I will use the to the of PCAs to in such might not be to a of functioning PCAs might be in a to PCAs from with PCAs, in order to a of PCAs to or they be required to their for example, that the in the could to PCAs in order to thereby ability to other or other is that or will not be but it will more to do The suggests that we the PCAs, so that at a to other would be to the to PCAs for the that is not merely that not be by their from a of but that they be to a of functioning at a to other PCAs to however, an increase in the national because the PCAs to could be by PCAs to all other The that we suggests that the proposal to PCAs does not do to our moral are moral we the One way to functioning would be by to an of or I argued that one version of a to an of or could to a in PCAs. such a only one's to or to in would rather other at the of their or One might an alternative version of the to or to have the to their or their but not be to do a would not to a in PCAs, but it would to ensure that have PCAs, or have the to PCAs, to ensure that they or they to do One with the or approach is that the approach provides for an or but only at a than other the required that be to a of functioning at a to other The or approach to for this of the The approach only to ensure that or their but not to ensure that they do so at the as other The reason that the or approach is is that it for additional PCAs be shared required for the of or the of have already been shared the of required to the worst of climate change, one might that national emissions at a that will ensure that further PCAs will be necessary for the of or the of have been that are at a and that PCAs are The or approach has to the PCAs be it seems to that we PCAs are be distributed to of not by the or approach. More than the or of the approach is a to the of on agents' for it functioning not in of an but by with the of other According to the of the we ensure that PCAs are distributed so as is the does not agent's for more or less than other as a of the agent's this would that for important to their as a of more carbon would to more PCAs than for important to their are less carbon might because the is carbon for two in a in a climate and a climate for they might because to or of in order to the of for example, might be to to to and with a an might access to of are in an agent's is the of and it is the of are a matter for in the on and not that we to such will to be in order to implement a of PCAs, they not with the present project of a of PCAs. the between and is not that we the that the does not have the normative for well as the of this that the with the or of the approach. the that not be by their from a of functioning at a to other since the for of an has to pay to additional PCAs would be by also provides a that both to PCAs required for and to additional PCAs not required for the to between the normative of PCAs, and the normative carbon that in the case of carbon out PCAs an surrender to a particular emission-dependent that we to to surrender more PCAs for to a more than a less but not for being a more for reasons their a but approach both to the of PCAs and to carbon to on the incentives of a system of PCAs to the of I have argued that we PCAs in a manner that as is that the does not agent's for more or less than other as a of the agent's PCAs have been be to their PCAs or to more PCAs as they of of PCAs will only be an to this do not the moral of the and an to an is a outcome than for the of a here between and a policy it is to in order to the system we PCAs the that will we do I that we to so in over is only of here as it the system to and so that costs are and so that the the system and it as will have to to for the of but we not that on will their that adopt a system of PCAs the way to would be to PCAs but to PCAs for for additional PCAs on the of their a system would up not the to for the to for a system of PCAs in general and for this in the to and implement a system for fairly from system more than this would the of the system of PCAs to from the the system could be over both in order to of more in and in order to not only have than but also have than the system was up and might to more for agents' they not to do a such would have the not only of having and the system but also of having access to a of the use of PCAs could the of for For I would like to and two