Personal carbon trading "could fill the Green Deal gap"

Personal carbon trading is at the heart of a new proposal from academics to reducing energy use in buildings and help meet the aims of the Green Deal.

It comes in the form of a strategy document, Achieving Zero, being launched today by Dr. Brenda Boardman of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, which she hopes will help transform the UK’s built environment in a fair and equitable way.

Clinching the Green Deal

Dr. Boardman claims her recommendations will "lift millions of people out of fuel poverty, and improve the UK’s energy security" in a way that is "considerably cheaper than providing new energy supply".

The report comes at a critical time, as DECC's mandarins are now mulling the responses to questions about the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and Green Deal's implementation in the recent consultation process.

The Environmental Industries Commission’s Executive Chair, Adrian Wilkes, has pointed out that "its successful implementation will be no easy feat" since it must "have widespread appeal and take-up from all sectors and demographics if it is to be successful".

Not only does it need the "required skills for Green Deal Assessors", but a broad "list of qualifying measures, products and systems" to cope with "the disparate number of building sizes and uses".

Most importantly, "it is vital that the scheme is felt to be financially viable in the eyes of both the suppliers and the consumers," he said.

Dr. Boardman's low carbon diet plan

Dr Boardman, who has long been a passionate advocate of domestic energy efficiency as a way of curbing fuel poverty, takes the view that the Green Deal must be seen strategically as part of the move towards the 2050 zero carbon use target.

“The change in perspective is substantial," she said, launching her report at Salford University, "as in future the value of our homes and offices will be linked to their energy efficiency.

"Reducing our demand for energy becomes an investment for every property owner.”

Achieving zero describes a triple-win situation through jobs, improvements to infrastructure, and energy security.

“We already spend ￡35bn a year on improving and maintaining our buildings," she says. "We need to refocus 40% of this into energy-efficiency and spend less on expensive kitchens and conservatories.”

Her key recommendations include:

• progressively more challenging, legally-binding standards of energy efficiency for properties, based on Energy Performance Certificates in homes and display energy certificates (DECs) for business properties
• a network of Low Carbon Zones set up by local councils that target the worst performing homes, especially those occupied by the fuel poor, using the legal obligation to eradicate fuel poverty (where reasonably practicable) by 2016 under the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000
• remaining emissions in households being mopped up "through some other policy that covers all energy use, such as personal carbon allowances (PCA)".
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Personal carbon allowances

PCAs have been promoted by Dr. Boardman before. They give individuals an annually reducing carbon budget and they are rewarded if they live within their budget by being able to trade surplus allowances.

DECC has previously rejected them as unnecessary, given the existence of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

However, the failure of this scheme to provide sufficient incentive to invest in large low carbon infrastructure due to the oversupply of credits and their consequent low price, has led to scepticism and the Treasury's crestfallen contemplation of the cost implications of its commitment to introducing a carbon price floor.

PCAs, because they promote fairness and personal lifestyle change, remain attractive and for this reason are the explored by a new book, "Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society" to be published next month, co-authored by a group of campaigners that includes the late Richard Douthwaite.

PCAs are being used in practice now by one pioneering firm to reward employees and stakeholders for making energy efficiency improvements.

Green consultancy WSP Environment and Energy's scheme has 2,200 individuals taking part on a voluntary basis from 15 different organisations, including National Grid, Ecclesiastical Insurance and the London Borough of Haringey.

Its director, David Symons, says the scheme helps "staff understand that sustainability is relevant to them".

One of the scheme's members, Inga Doak, Head of Environment at Invensys Rail praises the scheme, as it "demonstrates pro-active leadership... It was fascinating to see people's perceptions of their carbon footprint and it helped to blow some carbon myths out of the water."

The home refurbishment mountain

Dr. Boardman sees PCAs as complementary to actions which reduce the carbon emissions burden of things that are outside individuals' control, like the state of the buildings they use.

The rate of activity required to meet the Green Deal targets is staggering: for every hour over the next 39 years, 82 existing buildings should be retrofitted to the level of band A on the energy performance certificate, Dr. Boardman calculates.

This is a 25% faster than has been achieved over the last 40 years.

If this were to be done, by 2050, all of the UK’s 28 million properties would be so well-insulated that they would require no external energy for space heating.

Electricity use, per property, would be halved and supplied solely from renewable electricity on the grid as a result of policies on lights and appliances, the report says.

How would this be financed? The report envisages that building improvements will continue to be the responsibility of the property owner, with Government providing zero-interest loans to low-income owner occupiers.

Once minimum standards are attained, properties would become more valuable, and be an asset in which lenders may have an equity stake.

Other financial inducements could come in the form of reduced tax liability (stamp duty, council tax, VAT), but at a scale required to ensure popular support in conjunction with the regulatory framework.

The size of financial incentives is inversely proportional to the certainty of the regulatory environment, particularly on minimum standards, Dr. Boardman says.

Value for money

An emphasis on reducing energy demand would result in the most cost-effective cuts in the UK's carbon emissions, with the benefit of lower bills and greater comfort for consumers.

The alternative, being touted by some in the Coalition Government, of a higher level of new, expensive electricity-generating capacity, implies considerably higher bills for users, thus pushing more households into fuel poverty, without providing any improvement in the level of energy services or spreading wealth by improving building value, or raising public awareness of energy use.

It therefore represents greater value for money.

Crucially, it all rests on the level of the interest rate at which capital is lent to finance the work and the period over which it is to be repaid.

Dr. Boardman concludes, "The UK cannot meet its legal obligations on eradicating fuel poverty by 2016 and 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 without most, if not all, of the proposed initiatives".

The Commons debates personal carbon trading

This took place on 18.6.09: debating the Goernment's response to the Environmental Audit Commission's report. David Fleming was present at this debate.

Many of the objections to PCT put here, simply don't apply to Cap & Share, which is not mentioned in the whole debate... or the AEA report. It seems most parliamentarians are still unaware of Cap and Share despite the Irish Government's interest.

Joan Ruddock says on PCT "a significant number of low-income households would lose out, and we cannot ignore that. More than 2 million low- income households could be doubly disadvantaged. Not only would they pay the cost of the scheme, which could be around £40 to £80 per household per year, but if they lived in a rural area and had to use their car regularly, for example, they would exceed their free allocation and incur the cost of buying additional allowances. We cannot find a way of overcoming that."

The EAC wants to see a pilot. Ruddock wants it funded by the private sector. She puts faith in the 'upstream' ETS (C&S is also upstream - capping emissions where they enter the economy): "With regard to the upstream schemes, we estimate that it would cost about £50 million to cover a few dozen fuel companies, compared with the £1 billion to £2 billion to introduce a trading scheme that would have to involve 50 million participants. So what additional benefit could be gained by the downstream approach?". But as Yeo observes, the ETS doesn't deliver, and is not value for money.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat) does say: "One of our proposals is to switch from the climate change levy to a carbon tax, which would apply to "primary fuels as they enter the economy, once our energy efficiency measures have become effective in tackling fuel poverty, using revenues to cut other taxes."" Then he says: "I have decided that my party has an obligation to respond formally to the proposition in the report, and that we need to do so quickly, so I have decided that we will have a short period of formal but open consultation, picking up on what has come from the Committee's report and from the Government response, which makes arguments against it. We will complete that process by September, by the time of our conference."

Gregory Barker (Shadow Minister, Energy and Climate Change; Bexhill & Battle, Conservative) is against PCT on the grounds it is too Big Brother.

> http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2009-06-18a.141.0

In Memoriam Will Howard

My good friend Will Howard has just died, following a long and brave battle with cancer.

Will has been in recent years a passionate advocate of the form of personal carbon trading known as Cap and Share [link to the web site he set up].

Unbelievably, on the day he died, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced that the UK would set up what Reuters' press release called "Domestic Carbon Emissions Trading". This represents a fantastic achievement for the whole movement to get such a trading scheme established.

Despite his cancer Will cycled to Brussels from his home in west Wales near Machynlleth last summer as part of this campaign.

It's to his great credit, that as the main UK campaigner for this simplified form of carbon trading, it is now firmly on the UK political agenda.

A lifelong campaigner

I will try to summarise what I know of his life. Will was a brave man who cared deeply about the state of the planet and its people.

I met him in 1997 when we began collaboration on two projects: a Green Solutions CD-Rom for the Centre for ALternative Technoogy, featuring the then new technology of Quicktime virtual reality, and the Palace of Amnesia, a prototype computer game I wrote and he directed.

At that time he was living on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, running an Apple Mac design company.

With his wife Lyn and boys Sam and Dougie they had moved there from Bristol, where Will, who held a PhD in biology and was an ornithologist, had been a campaign officer for Amnesty International.

This was an early example of the strength of his campaigning zeal.

When my wife Zoe was severely ill in 1998 with a heart tumour, they put us up in their Swansea flat and took care of our own boys.

Their boys were and are home-educated, another example of Will's do-it-yourself approach to life - he and Lyn believe the education system lets children down.

The track of their life eventually led them to Machynlleth where I live, and where Will pioneered a campaign to have the Dyfi Valley becme a Fair Trade Valley - and he succeeded.

As a multimedia author he programmed the Carbon Gym for CAT, and designed the multimedia version of Peter Lord's The Visual Culture of Wales - three CD-Roms for the University of Wales.

This was not enough - he moved on to the most pressing matter of our time - mitigating climate change.

Will was not good at putting himself first. This was part of his selflessness.

In 2004 he had lower back ache which he attributed to poor computer use. In fact it was cancer but because he delayed seeing a doctor about it, so it was at stage 4 before being diagnosed.

He was given just about three months to live.

But he refused to give in, a mark of his courage.

He spent a year trying alternative methods of treatment believing the NHS way to be deeply flawed. They almost worked. But cancer is a persistent enemy.

With stubborn determination he survived a further three years - with the help of his wife, Lyn, and boys, always trying the latest remedies and treatments, from Switzerland and the States, supported by his GP Simon Morpeth. Latterly these included chemo and radiotherapy.

Perhaps he should not have made the bike ride to Brussels. But you couldn't have stopped him. He was determined to do it, because he loved the planet and believed this to be the best thing he could do with his life.

You couldn't ask for more.

The best tribute for him is that his work be carried on to its successful completion.

This is an inadequate memorial. I hope others will add to it.

Earlier in the week I had an email which contained the government's response to a petition asking for "the Prime Minister to Adopt Carbon Rationing and Contraction and Convergence."

The response is detailed. It says - they're looking at it.

"The Government is looking into the potential value of personal carbon trading (PCT). This is just one of a number of possible long-term options being explored for making individuals better informed about, and involved in, tackling climate change. An initial scoping study has been produced for Defra by the Centre for Sustainable Energy. This study concluded that a personal carbon allowance and trading system has the potential to achieve emissions savings in a fairer way than carbon taxes. The Government is now developing a work programme which should provide the information to lead to a decision on whether or not a personal carbon allowance is a realistic and workable policy option ."

The Low Carbon Kid believes a form of PCT or cap-and-share is the ONLY way to force down overall national carbon emissions, sine another route (persuasion) will always fail, due to catch-23, and taxing has a backlash.

You have to remove the choice to engage in energy-expensive activities.

On Friday I'll write about the two systems on offer and how they differ.

The CSE's scoping study can be found on Defra's website