Terence Corcoran, the curmudgeonly conservative columnist for the very conservative National Post in Canada, suggests that the response to the pandemic, with its vaccine passports, might lead to personal carbon passports: “Get ready for CLIMATE-21 fossil fuel virus lockdowns.”

He quotes Mark Carney from his new book, making the connection between the pandemic and the climate crisis: “If we come together to meet the biggest challenges in medical biology, so too can we come together to meet the challenges of climate physics and the forces driving inequality.”

Corcoran also points to a recent paper:

This is a subject we have covered on Treehugger before, under a different name, in “It’s Time to Consider Carbon Rationing.” The rationale is straightforward: We know that there is a global carbon budget that we need to stay under to keep the rise in temperature below 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), which, according to this post on Treehugger, is between 235 and 395 billion metric tons, or between 30 and 50 tons per person on earth.

How do you ensure that everyone has their fair share? How do you set up a system of trading it? I wrote: “I have always thought that a personal carbon allowance or ration made sense. If you have your carbon credit card you can make some money selling credits you are not using, or buy some if you want a steak for dinner or a flight to Europe.” The idea was not received warmly at the time, but as the article “Personal Carbon Allowance Revisited” notes, it is time for another look.

The study authors—Francesco Fuso Nerini, Tina Fawcett, Yael Parag, and Paul Ekins—note that when Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) were first discussed 20 years ago, it was considered “an idea ahead of its time.” There was widespread resistance to an idea that seemed intrusive and socialist. But much has changed since then; climate change has deteriorated into a climate crisis, many people have got used to carbon taxes that are a form of redistribution, and we have had a pandemic.

The authors write:

Another thing that has changed in 20 years is technology. When they were first proposed, PCAs were treated like a credit card or a bank account, with carbon treated like a currency, I wrote: “Each of us could receive an allocation of carbon points to spend in a month or year. These could be stored on a smart bank card. When paying for gasoline or airline tickets or certain foods (or, more broadly, energy use), the card would electronically deduct money plus appropriate numbers of carbon points.” It was transactional.

However, the study authors suggest that now, with our smartphones, smart meters, and artificial intelligence, it can all be done automatically.

Is this an impossible sell from a civil liberties point of view on one side, or from a libertarian point of view on the other? As Treehugger’s Sami Grover might ask, is this part of “a robust discussion about what freedom means?” Or would it be seen as necessary, as vaccine passports are? Would people get behind it, as most people did in the Second World War when rationing was imposed? Lead author Professor Fuso Nerini is quoted in a UCL press release, noting that perhaps people are ready for this.

Co-author, Paul Ekins describes how it might lead to personal changes.

Having spent a year tracking my carbon emissions and writing about it in “Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle,” I can attest that knowing where your carbon emissions are coming from does change your behavior. And I already use My Fitness Pal to track my diet and MapMyRun to track my exercise and have a smart meter on my house, so much of this information is already being gathered.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that when I hop on my e-bike, I might actually be saving part of my PCA that I can sell, or save enough that I can visit my sister in London? Wouldn’t it be great to actually have a financial incentive to live a 1.5-degree lifestyle? I wonder also if this is an idea whose time has come.