The war against climate change requires no less a personal sacrifice. But so far, governments have failed to educate the public about the danger. Instead of “when you ride alone you ride with Hitler” to get people to save gas as depicted in this U.S. World War 2 poster, we need a public campaign to state “live simply so others may simply live.”
In September of last year, I published on this blog site a posting that described how public opinion among young people was committed to fighting global warming through the pocketbook. That is, young people between ages 15 and 20 when surveyed were prepared to pay more for goods and services that would lead to a zero-carbon future. I was inspired by this to consider the potential of Canadians participating in a national effort to get personally involved in carbon emission reduction. I started looking for tools and models of systems that could help to give Canadians the means to drive our national emissions down through each of our individual contributions.
The tools:
Why should we have regional carbon calculators?
Canada’s immense geography creates very different challenges. While most of us live close to the American border and in urban centres, there are also rural populations, communities in the Far North, and other isolated small towns that experience much different lifestyles than the vast majority. Imagine the energy requirements of Canadians living above the 60th parallel versus those who live in Southern Ontario. Also imagine the transportation requirements of isolated communities in the Far North where winter ice roads, seasonal shipping through the Northwest Passage, or air are the principal means by which people receive essential goods and services. The footprint challenges of these more isolated Canadians cannot be the same as those of us in the vast majority and thus require a separate accounting mechanism that recognizes the higher carbon threshold.
What will a personal carbon calculator do?
The carbon calculator can establish a benchmark carbon value that can then be translated into an equivalent value in a digital carbon currency. Every person who makes the calculation can then be assigned an appropriate amount of digital carbon currency.
What is a digital carbon currency?
This form of currency is electronic in nature with no physical representation. It can be traded in a private electronic exchange and transferred to another member of the exchange. The value of digital carbon currency for each person would be determined by the initial carbon calculation and would be placed in a secured electronic carbon wallet.
What is a carbon wallet?
Each participant in this personal carbon exchange would be able to transact carbon currency using a blockchain to secure, manage and track all activity. Carbon generating activities will count against the currency in the wallet. By the end of the year, any surplus will be assigned a Canadian dollar monetary value and be tradeable to those who have spent their carbon and emptied their carbon wallets.
What would be the mechanism for carbon reduction?
Each subsequent year, the amount of carbon currency assigned to each participant’s wallet will be decreased. This is the mechanism that will incent participants to expend less carbon through lifestyle changes. Participants will be able to reassess their carbon footprints periodically using the calculator to ensure that they are on the right track.
How will the blockchain work for carbon currency?
The blockchain is a cloud-based general ledger initially designed to manage the exchange of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency. But the blockchain technology can secure any kind of transaction from banking, to voting, to real estate, to health record management. In this case, the blockchain will be the repository of record for every carbon wallet and every carbon currency exchange.
Are there examples of carbon currency elsewhere that can be used as a potential model?
Poseidon, a Swiss non-profit has created its own form of carbon currency that is not assigned to a carbon calculator but rather to the measure of the carbon value of everyday products. Think of going to the supermarket and filling your shopping basket with each product not only having a monetary value but also a carbon currency value based on the amount of carbon produced to create the product. It could be a steak (high carbon currency) or a locally grown head of lettuce (very low carbon currency). The challenge in invoking this type of carbon currency, which could equally work within what I am proposing above, is to get the buy-in of every company producing products sold to the public.
If you have thoughts on this subject and suggestions to further refine what is being proposed, please feel free to comment. Meanwhile, I leave you with this poster created to celebrate a recent Earth Day. Its message isn’t too dissimilar to the one depicted in the poster from World War 2. Only the enemy is different.
To get a sense of just how more committed Generation Z is to sustainability than the general population, take a look at the chart below. It measures top sustainability purchasing drivers.
When I see this commitment to paying more for “green” and “sustainability” I am encouraged. But what troubles me is the lack of discipline in being able to measure green and sustainable value. To me, it makes sense for us to have tools to make selecting green and sustainable choices easier. But what tools are out there to help product and service creators, and consumers measure their environmental impact?
Think about it. We contribute to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) with every buying decision we make. Buy a Starbucks or Tim Horton’s coffee. What’s the GHG value of that transaction? Fill your gas tank, purchase new clothes, book a flight – each transaction produces GHG values.
We can go online and try and use a carbon calculator and begin to figure out our lifestyle impacts on the environment, but accurate tracking of our GHG contributions is pretty difficult to do. One way that could make it a lot easier is to create a carbon currency.
Creating a Carbon Currency
A carbon currency would be an instrument focused on GHG reductions. It would derive its value based on a measure of the economic benefit derived from reductions. Initially, the government would issue every citizen an electronic wallet filled with carbon currency. The amount would vary, determined by age, profession, and other measurable attributes. Every transaction would have a local currency value as it does today, but it would also have an assigned carbon currency value based on GHG contributions.
The idea here is to alter human behaviour through better green lifestyle choices. The balance in carbon currency remaining in a person’s electronic wallet at the end of a specified period of time could be used to purchase green and sustainable units of value that could be applied to reforestation or other natural carbon sinks. As we adjusted our behaviour by making greener choices, the allotment of carbon currency in each allotted cycle would decrease.
Could this work?
Recently as I was working on ideas related to carbon pricing and how individuals could help governments tackle GHGs, it occurred to me that we really need a carbon guide similar to the nutrition information that appears on consumer packaging. In Canada, our government produces a national food guide designed to help us make good food choices.
We also regulate packaging on food products to see the content of what we eat. So when we buy boxes of crackers we can read the consumer information that tells us caloric unit value. We also can see vitamin content, and other ingredients. If a carbon value were applied in the same way as calorie units and shown on packaged consumables, then we would have the means to measure these products’ GHG contribution.
Now think about other consumables that aren’t food to which we also would want to assign carbon value. This presents a bit of a challenge. Here’s a partial list of the things many of us acquire in our daily lives:
How do we measure the carbon currency value in all of these things?
That requires input from the manufacturers in the same way packaged food producers give us content information. Once we start putting carbon content values on everything, a carbon currency will become a powerful tool for altering behaviour and creating a greener, more sustainable future. That’s what Generation Z is prepared to pay more for, and that’s what all of us need to do to help them and the generations that follow them for the sake of the planet.
]]>