Personal carbon allowances

CSE's research (Distributional Impacts of Personal Carbon Trading - see below) showed that a system based on an equal allocation of carbon allowances to every adult is broadly fair, but that a small proportion of low-income households would be made worse off.

This report, by Vicki White and Joshua Thumim for the Institute for Public Policy Research, aimed to find out how the system could be tweaked in order to moderate the negative impacts on low-income households.

August 2009

Initially Accenture were commissioned by Defra to undertake an analysis of the technical feasibility and potential cost of a Personal Carbon Trading scheme.

The findings in the study provide a basis for further investigation into the feasibility and cost of this type of Personal Carbon Trading scheme and the opportunity to consider alternatives. The report highlights some of the next steps Defra might take if either of these paths were pursued.

Produced for CSE by Simon Roberts and Josh Thumin.

February 2008

This report builds on CSE's earlier work for Defra (see A Rough Guide to Individual Carbon Trading) and attempts to identify the distributional impacts that would emerge in the event of the introduction of a Personal Carbon Trading scheme. It looks at the likely winners and losers in different income groups, across geographical area and by household composition.

Written by Joshua Thumim and Vicki White (both Centre for Sustainable Energy)

March 2008

After the, then, Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, opened public debate on the issue in July 2006, Defra asked CSE to help carry out some initial analysis of the issues around different approaches to individual involvement in carbon trading.

By Simon Roberts and Joshua Thumim

November 2006