I am somewhat disappointed that none of your panellists mentioned that the major problem with Personal Carbon Allowances is that they are already largely redundant.

As an EU member, we are already a member of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which charges businesses for the carbon they emit. As most ordinary citizens' carbon emissions are emitted on their behalf by businesses, surely it makes sense to charge the businesses rather than the individuals and have the carbon cost encluded in the price? This is by far the most cost-efficient way of acheiving this - we don't make private citizens pay their own VAT bills, for example.

If we classify end-user sales of fuel - such as petrol - as carbon emissions, then short of charging people for breathing in and out, practically all of an individual's carbon emissions will be accounted for.

To answer another of your panellists' points - it doesn't matter whether those who meet the carbon reduction are considered rich or poor - what does matter however is that we use revenue from the scheme to alleviate poverty by reducing taxes and raising personal allowances for our poorest citizens.

# posted by Joe Taylor @ 2:37 pm