1
Reconciling scientific reality with realpolitik: moving
beyond carbon pricing to TEQs – an integrated, economywide
emissions cap
PERSPECTIVE
Authors’ names and affiliations
Shaun Chamberlin
Fleming Policy Centre
s.chamberlin@flemingpolicycentre.org.uk
Larch Maxey
Plymouth University, Network of Wellbeing
larch.maxey@plymouth.ac.uk
Victoria Hurth
Plymouth University
victoria.hurth@plymouth.ac.uk
Note that this is the authors’ original manuscript (preprint) of a
paper submitted for publication with the Carbon Management
journal, after addressing peer review comments.
Abstract
This article considers why price-based frameworks may be inherently unsuitable for
delivering unprecedented global emissions reductions while retaining the necessary
public and political support, and argues that it is time to instead draw on quantitybased
mechanisms such as TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas).
TEQs is a climate policy framework combining a hard cap on emissions with the use
of market mechanisms to distribute quotas beneath that cap.
The significant international research into TEQs is summarised, including a 2008 UK
government feasibility study, which concluded that the scheme was “ahead of its
time”. TEQs would cover all sectors within a national economy, including
households, and findings suggest it could act as a catalyst for the socio-technical
transitions required to maximise wellbeing under a tightening cap, while generating
national common purpose towards innovative energy demand reductions.
Finally, there are reflections on the role that the carbon management community can
play in further developing TEQs and reducing the rift between what climate science
calls for and what politics is delivering.
Executive Summary
Framing
 Politics is not reflecting the urgency of climatology findings.
 Interdisciplinary analysis shows that carbon pricing is an unsuitable policy
framework to guide the unprecedented emissions trajectory required.
Carbon pricing cannot deliver four essential features of an effective climate
policy framework:
 Ensuring real and radical emissions reductions in practice.
 Facilitating public/political acceptability for the implementation of such cuts.
 Embedding a longer-term perspective into societal decision-making.
 Integrating cross-sector engagement with intrinsic motivation and society wide
co-operation.
An alternative policy framework: TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
 TEQs is similar to a national electronic rationing scheme for energy, but with
legally tradable allowances. It could meet the four criteria outlined above.
 It combines downstream engagement with upstream enforcement and would
cover all sectors of a national economy, including households.
 It would act as an umbrella framework, ensuring a hard cap on emissions and
supporting other climate policy.
 Research into the scheme suggests that it may be expected to meet with
greater public acceptability than carbon pricing frameworks, as it is a
progressive scheme that would safeguard entitlements to energy while leaving
households to manage their consumption as they see fit.
 TEQs draws on principles from social psychology in engaging a nation's
ingenuity in reducing energy demand. It attempts to define new norms of
acceptable carbon consumption and create a clear shared goal, generating
common purpose around intrinsic shared desires to overcome climate change
and retain secure access to essential energy services.
A political history of TEQs
 TEQs was first developed in 1996.
 A UK government feasibility study in 2008 declared it “ahead of its time” on
grounds of cost and public acceptability, and so the government withdrew
from funding further research at that time, although expressing continued
interest.
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 Substantial research since, including 2011’s high profile cross-party
parliamentary report, has challenged these negative conclusions.
Conclusion
 As members of the carbon management community, we must frankly
recognise the shortcomings of carbon pricing frameworks.
 Hard cap based schemes are called for, and TEQs is the best-placed to
reconcile the rift between science and politics.
 Governments must be challenged on their failure to implement their own
carbon targets, and why they do not implement frameworks suited to do so.
 The carbon management community has a key role to play in refining,
promoting and driving the implementation of TEQs in a national context.
4
Key terms
Carbon pricing: Umbrella term referring to policy frameworks – such as carbon
taxation and conventional carbon trading – which use increases in the price of carbon
as the core mechanism to restrain emissions. The term is distinguished from quantitybased
carbon policy frameworks, which are built around a hard cap on emissions. On
this definition, TEQs is not an example of 'carbon pricing', since the scheme is built
around a hard cap, with the price of TEQs units merely providing a highly visible
indicator of how well society is adapting to the declining cap.
Social cost of carbon: The social cost of carbon measures the marginal cost to society
of emitting one extra tonne of carbon today, incorporating the full economic cost of
the climatic damage it will cause over its atmospheric lifetime. In theory, it signals
what society should be willing to pay now in order to avoid the future damage caused
by emissions.
Upstream: Refers to policy that engages with the limited numbers of fuel and energy
companies that bring carbon into an economy. Upstream policy has the advantage of
being cheaper to implement than downstream engagement (defined below).
Common purpose: Shared effort to reach a shared goal, with personal aims and
collective aims aligned. Here applied to uniting a nation in the aim of radical
reductions in energy demand.
Personal Carbon Trading (PCT): Umbrella term for frameworks that include an
element of trading for individuals, including TEQs and Personal Carbon Allowances
(PCAs). PCAs would only cover individuals, and non-specialists can find the term
PCT misleading when applied to the TEQs scheme, which covers all sectors of the
economy, but it is the established umbrella term within the field.
Carbon rating: Under the TEQs scheme, each fuel or electricity source is subjected
to a lifecycle emissions analysis in order to determine its 'carbon rating'. This rating
determines the number of TEQs units that must be surrendered alongside a purchase
of that energy – e.g. 0.1 units per kWh, or 2.1 units per litre. One TEQs unit permits
the purchase of an amount of fuel of electricity that produces 1 kg of CO2 over its
lifecycle (i.e. not only from final combustion, but also the combustion of all other
energy consumed in bringing it to market).
Downstream: Refers to policy that engages with the many millions of individuals and
households that consume energy in an economy. Downstream policy has the
advantage of engaging directly with the source of energy demand.
Extrinsic motivation: Being motivated by the prospect of an external reward for
undertaking a task, or penalty for not doing so.
Intrinsic motivation: Being motivated by one's own desire for the direct
consequences of a task undertaken, or by the inherent value seen in undertaking it.
5
Article body
The essential problem is easily stated: there is a rift in realism. Realism about the
findings of climate science demands dramatic and immediate emissions reductions if
we are to avoid catastrophic destabilisation of the global climate [1,2]. Anderson and
Bows argue that these reductions must be in the region of 10% per annum in
industrialised (UNFCCC Annex 1) countries [3,201]. Yet present political reality in
these countries says that such reductions are unthinkable [4]. While realists about
climatology rightly argue that physical reality 'bats last' and does not negotiate,
realists within politics argue with equal validity that any approach that tries to
radically transform society against society's wishes will be resented and, soon enough,
rejected.
The failure to reconcile these viewpoints is perhaps the greatest obstacle facing the
field of carbon management, since without clear agreement about where society is
transitioning to, it becomes virtually impossible to effectively enable the sociotechnical
changes required, and to retain the necessary public backing. If we are
seeking only to tweak the economy for marginal, politically palatable emissions
reductions, then carbon pricing might be an appropriate framework. For example, it
can serve to stimulate the incremental adoption of 'low hanging fruit' such as overdue
efficiency improvements [5]. However, climatologists are ever clearer that we require
dramatic and unprecedented emissions reductions in order to avoid the worst ravages
of climate destabilisation [6].
As Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author Josep G. Canadell
recently stated in this journal, “The time has come to truly build carbon management
into the deepest inner workings of society” [7]. Canadell goes on to state the common
assumption that “no doubt” this should be achieved through carbon pricing. His
recognition of the need for a coherent, overarching framework to harness the many
facets of climate policy and action towards the goal of dramatic global emissions
reductions is entirely justified. However, in this article we raise significant doubts
that carbon pricing is the most appropriate candidate to deliver the speed and depth of
change required, regardless of whether prices are set via carbon trading (e.g. the
European Union Emissions Trading Scheme) or carbon taxation. The dominance of
the argument that price-based mechanisms are best able to deliver change in an
efficient and cost-effective way [8,9] may be concealing other options from view, but
alternatives are both available and much needed.
As is widely recognised in the field of socio-technical transition, in order to achieve
deep societal change, the path-dependency and political and cultural lock-in which
underpins current carbon usage must be addressed. This requires careful
consideration of the multiple levels where change can be directed, and where pressure
can be brought to bear [10], in order to nurture individual and organisational agency
and develop alternative practices [11,12]. Smith et al. and others within the field note
that marginal approaches that “treat regime transformation as monolithic and
dominated by rational action” [11] may have been appropriate for addressing problems
such as acid rain or water pollution, but are unlikely to succeed when applied to more
challenging problems like climate change and resource depletion, which require a
6
range of fundamental, complex and interrelated system changes [11,13]. A fresh
approach is therefore needed.
As such, we, the carbon management community, have contributed to the widening
rift between science and politics by attempting to respond to the imperatives of
climatology with policy interventions that do not reflect the workings of society. As
the literature on socio-technical transitions shows, a reconciliation will require action
from us all: scientists, policy makers, campaigners and the public [11,12,13,14]. Within
academia, we can begin by improving our cross-disciplinary communication, in
particular by aligning the latest climate science more closely with findings in the
fields of socio-technical transitions, social psychology and climate policy, and vice
versa. One of the aims of this Perspectives article is to contribute to this process.
We begin by arguing for certain necessary features that any successful carbon
management framework needs to display if it is to enable the scale and depth of
changes required, both technically and socially. We consider several ways in which
current policy frameworks fail to meet these, and then go on to assess an alternative
with significant political and research history – TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) – and
whether it demonstrates the required features. Finally, we draw conclusions about
appropriate pathways for future climate policy.
Essential features of an effective climate policy framework
(and why carbon pricing is failing to deliver)
Ensuring emissions reductions
The fundamental shortcoming of the existing climate policy approach is its failure to
curb emissions, with global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels reaching a record
high of 36 billion tonnes in 2013 (61% above 1990 levels, 2.1% above 2012) [15]. In
the words of the International Energy Agency, addressing this requires “a far-reaching
transformation of the global energy system” [16].
There are two approaches to achieving such radical change in a short timeframe; the
essential difference between them being which of two variables is adjusted. Climate
policy frameworks either act to influence energy prices (e.g. carbon taxation) in the
belief that consequent emissions reductions will be sufficient to avoid climate
catastrophe, or to place a cap on emissions (e.g. TEQs, explained below) in the belief
that the price effects of this will not cause economic catastrophe. These are termed
the price-based and quantity-based approaches, respectively.
The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the largest emissions
trading scheme in operation and perhaps the most prominent existing climate policy
framework [17]. It caps emissions from the EU’s power sector and heavy industry, and
is notionally a quantity-based 'cap and trade' scheme. However, in practice it has a
ceiling on permit prices and is linked to non-EU nations through the Clean
Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation framework, meaning that it has
what is termed a 'soft cap' – i.e. no absolute limit on emissions, as demonstrated by
7
the hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon that have been emitted above the level of
its 'cap' [18]. Neither the ‘global carbon market’ established through the Kyoto
Protocol and subsequent international negotiations [19], nor a raft of national and
regional carbon markets [20], have delivered emissions cuts of the speed and scale
required.
Since they lack a hard cap, such frameworks are, in effect, price-based schemes,
wherein an appropriate carbon price becomes necessary to achieving the intended
emissions reductions (note that for the purposes of this article we do not distinguish
between price-based schemes and hybrid schemes, since both open up the possibility
of exceeding the cap, and it is the integrity of the cap that is our primary concern here)
[21,22]. As such, they reduce the financial risk of high prices causing economic
catastrophe at the expense of foregoing the benefits of quantity-based schemes that
are explored below. It is perhaps unfortunate that the term ‘cap and trade’ is widely
applied to such effectively price-based schemes, as it can cause confusion and leaves
us lacking a widely-understood distinct term for ‘hard cap and trade’ schemes. In this
article, we refer to such alternative frameworks as ‘quantity-based’ or ‘hard cap’
schemes.
As both theory and present experience demonstrate [1,3,5,15,23], price-based mechanisms
cannot deliver certainty of adequate emissions reductions. This is in part because
energy demand has proven to be resilient (inelastic) in the face of price rises [24,25], but
also because there will always be significant uncertainty as to whether the price is set
at the right level to reflect the social cost of carbon. Arriving at a definite figure is
rendered impossible by the need to incorporate unknowable factors, such as the exact
economic impacts of present day emissions on future generations (including nonmarginal
catastrophic scenarios) and forecasts of future atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations [9,26,27]. As Rosen and Guenther argue, “humanity would be wise to
mitigate climate change as quickly as possible without being constrained by existing
economic systems and institutions, or risk making the world uninhabitable … since
we can never know what the cost of a hypothetical reference case would be, and since
we must proceed with a robust mitigation scenario, we will never be able to determine
the net economic benefits of mitigating climate change, even in hindsight” (emphasis
in original) [28].
Consequently, given what is at stake, we argue that a quantity-based ‘hard cap’ is the
appropriate framework for our present situation, since this can guarantee achievement
of a long-term emissions trajectory defined by climate science, as long as the
framework itself has the public/political support to survive the subsequent economic
effects.
We note that the rate of transition committed to by the UK government under its
Climate Change Act (a 31% reduction in emissions from 2013 to 2025, representing a
50% reduction on 1990 levels) has already led to tension and a real threat to the
political sustainability of the Act itself [4,202,203], despite that current policies cannot
deliver on such a carbon budget without “significant design improvements and
increased ambition, extended further in time” [29].
It must also be remembered that the Climate Change Committee which recommended
those commitments – tasked with representing physical reality in negotiation with the
8
political reality of the day – stated at the time that “the level of ambition in this
[carbon] budget should be regarded as an absolute minimum, and more may be both
feasible and required” [30].
Meeting more ambitious targets, however, such as Anderson and Bows’ annual 10%
reductions, could be devastating for those in fuel poverty and politically damaging for
those associated with such ambition, unless an appropriate policy framework can be
found and implemented [3,204]. This is where the clash of physical reality (as revealed
by climate science) and political reality becomes most apparent. Thus far we have
collectively ignored the rift between the two, telling ourselves that the problem is
being addressed as emissions continue to rise. Moving to a quantity-based framework
would call our bluff and prompt the necessary reconciliation; a painful one, no doubt,
yet kinder than unmitigated climate change is liable to demand.
And as well as choosing an appropriate framework, we must also apply it widely and
consistently. At present, even in countries that lead the way on carbon management,
almost half of emissions – those generated by individuals and households – are not
currently covered by any overarching, consistent policy framework. The UK, for
example, has relatively ambitious, legally-binding emissions targets [31] and 100+
present or planned policies that impact on the level of household carbon emissions:
from taxation, tax rebates, FITs and grants to building regulations, information
schemes, smart meters and appliance labelling [32]. However, these are collectively
labouring under what Kern et al. characterise as UK energy policy’s “complex and
incoherent” governance framework [33], with the House of Commons Environmental
Audit Committee concluding that “existing initiatives are unlikely to bring about
behavioural change on the scale required, with many individuals choosing to
disregard the connection between their own emissions and the larger challenge” [34].
Consequently, the potentially huge collective impact of individual and household
decisions on energy-use is not being fully realised, and will be essential to a
successful climate mitigation effort. [35,36].
Price-based frameworks could potentially be applied to this [37], but we will now
consider certain inherent features of carbon pricing frameworks that have contributed
to their becoming sufficiently unpopular that even climate activist groups oppose and
demonstrate against them [205]. In this context, any attempt to directly engage
households in a pricing framework is perceived as a risky political move, and may
even be perceived by some stakeholders as 'letting government off the hook' by
shifting away the responsibility for action [38].
Public acceptability
If a compulsory climate policy framework is to be applied to individuals, families and
their homes, it is likely to receive far more scrutiny than present upstream
approaches. In this context, the carbon pricing approach of treating all equal-sized
emissions cuts as fungible can be expected to raise controversy. While it is true that
the geographical location of cuts make little difference to the climatic impact, other
differentiating features become highly significant when radical restructuring of the
economy is necessary. For example, society may distinguish between what Shue
broadly terms “subsistence emissions” – here, the emissions perceived as unavoidable
9
when living within a household's current societal context – and “luxury emissions”,
that could reasonably be cut back [5,39].
These distinctions are culturally subjective and transitory – as society changes, the
emissions required for 'subsistence' will change, as may the modes of subsistence –
but while emissions perceived as 'luxury' may be called on for adaptation, any
programme that cuts back on perceived 'subsistence emissions' is likely to experience
a significant public backlash. Consequently, winning and retaining popular and
political support requires carbon management frameworks that deliver emissions
reductions while safeguarding entitlements to basic energy services [40].
Another reason underlying the unpopularity of the carbon pricing approach is that it
embeds a contradiction at the heart of policy. The UK Department of Energy &
Climate Change (Decc) describes its aims as being to “make sure the UK has secure,
clean, affordable energy supplies and promote international action to mitigate climate
change” [206]. Yet if decarbonisation is pursued primarily by striving to raise carbon
prices, then it pulls against affordability of energy supply. Over 80% of global energy
still comes from fossil fuels [207], so aiming to raise carbon prices while keeping
energy affordable is difficult – the prices of energy and carbon remain stubbornly
linked. Accordingly, price-based approaches as currently designed tend to hurt the
poorest, both globally and within nations, as the deliberate raising of the price of
carbon makes energy unaffordable for many, effectively rationing energy by price.
To put this in context, household energy bills in the UK have increased by 75% over
the past ten years (as compared with 23% general price inflation, and despite a
reduction in energy consumption). Although the Committee on Climate Change find
that four-fifths of this increase is unrelated to climate policy, the public have
nonetheless come to identify the current suite of climate change mitigation policies
with further increases to already-rising energy prices [41]. In these straitened times,
this drains public and political support, especially when juxtaposed with the widelyreported
windfall profits reaped by corporate participants in the EU ETS [42].
Simpler, more radical price-based proposals like the ‘Fee & Dividend’ revenueneutral
carbon tax [208] could, if implemented, mitigate the impact on the poorest and
thus bolster the political sustainability of the policy, potentially making a higher
carbon fee/tax feasible. However, such frameworks would still preserve the double
agenda – the need for both higher carbon prices and lower energy prices – that leaves
the ‘rift in realism’ unresolved, and underpins the incoherence of our present policy
suite.
As discussed in detail below, quantity-based frameworks offer the powerful
possibility of a simple, shared, high-profile focus throughout society: keeping the
price of energy as low as possible.
A longer-term perspective
In addition to failing to recognise the distinction between 'subsistence' and 'luxury'
emissions, carbon pricing also struggles to account for another way in which
emissions cuts of the same size may differ. Consider a one-tonne CO2 cut resulting
10
from a new renewable energy technology, or from a different way of organising social
life. This type of cut may unlock the possibility of dramatic future cuts. By contrast,
consider a different one-tonne cut resulting from an end-of-pipe technology added to
inherently carbon-intensive infrastructure which must soon be closed down. Viewed
from a long-term perspective, the impacts of these one-tonne cuts differ significantly
[5].
For a sustainable transformation in societal emissions we need policy that places such
sensitivity to wider transformational potential at the core of decision-making.
Decisions and investments which may take twenty years or more to achieve the
intended results are required throughout society, and appropriate long-term planning
will only happen under a widely-supported policy framework combining clarity and
longevity.
Price-based frameworks have tried to fulfil this overarching role, but since they
inherently treat all emissions reductions as fungible, allow for uncertainty with regard
to the expected overall rate of decarbonisation, and cannot provide a consistent longterm
signal to the economy (a stable price will be inappropriate at certain points of the
economic cycle, while a fluctuating price lacks the necessary consistency [17,40]), they
instead often drive short-term, quick-fix approaches. These in turn can reinforce
political and cultural lock-in, resulting in higher emissions over the longer-term [23].
A truly effective framework would need to provide real clarity and confidence
regarding the long-term trajectory towards a low-carbon future, allowing society to
focus on innovating towards that end, rather than on meeting the immediate
requirements of patchwork policy [10,11].
Integration – cross-sector engagement, motivation and collaboration
Bringing individuals, households, business and all energy-users into climate policy in
an engaged and integrated way would open up significant new possibilities for crosssector
co-operation. The “complex and incoherent” governance framework [33] under
which climate policy currently operates may have obscured the possibilities here, but
they are potentially huge.
As Peters, Fudge and Hoffman recently highlighted in this journal, there is both a
need and a failure “to engage people individually and collectively in establishing
more sustainable, low-carbon societies” [43], with the provision of a clear vision
recognised as critical to such large-scale system change [11].
If a clear and effective method could be found to stimulate common purpose in
carbon reductions throughout society, articulating the direction of travel visibly at a
range of levels, then the practical and political challenges of achieving dramatic
emissions cuts could quickly take on a very different appearance. From our current
perspective, it may seem unlikely, even utopian, to imagine communities and
households collaborating with each other to this end, alongside companies and local
and national government. However, this is precisely the kind of radical change that
climate policy must catalyse in order to enable citizens to maximise their wellbeing
within adequate carbon constraints [40,44].
11
Having outlined some of the features of present practice that are contributing to the
current rift between science and policy, we will now describe and consider an
alternative framework that engages with these shortcomings, and thus may offer an
effective way forward.
A candidate policy framework: TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
The TEQs scheme is a quantity-based framework for emissions that integrates all
sectors of the economy, including households. It would operate at the national scale
[45], providing a means for a country to guarantee the achievement of its national
carbon budget, and thus play its part in – even lead – the global climate change
mitigation effort [40].
Several excellent expositions of the detail of the scheme now exist [40,46,47], but in
essence it can be thought of as similar to an electronic system for rationing energy
use, only with legal trading of allowances. A variant named Personal Carbon
Allowances (PCAs), which would cover only household emissions, has also been
proposed [48], with Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) having become the established
umbrella term for these related schemes.
PCT as a whole has been described as “an innovative, radical policy approach to
climate mitigation” [35], with TEQs in particular described as “a simpler and fairer
approach than either green taxation or the European Union Emissions Trading
Scheme, [that] also provides people with a powerful incentive to demand low-carbon
technologies” [49].
Under TEQs, every adult would receive an equal free entitlement of TEQs units each
week. All other energy users – government, industry, etc. – would secure their TEQs
units through a weekly tender (auction), either by directly participating, or via
intermediaries such as high street banks or the post office (known in the literature as
‘market makers’ or ‘primary dealers’) [47].
The total number of TEQs units issued into the economy would be determined by the
national carbon budget (in the UK this is currently recommended to the Government
by the Committee on Climate Change). The proportion of that total issued as free
entitlements would reflect the proportion of national emissions produced by the direct
fuel and electricity use of the household sector (currently around 40%), with the
remainder issued to organisations via the weekly tender [50].
Whenever fuel or energy was purchased in the country, a number of units
corresponding to the amount of energy bought would have to be surrendered to the
retailer from the purchaser's TEQs account, in addition to their monetary payment.
This number would be determined by the carbon rating carried by all fuels and
electricity, which is calculated on the basis of the lifecycle emissions associated with
their production and use (and thus provides a competitive advantage to low-carbon
energy sources) [40,47].
12
TEQs units would only be required for direct purchases of fuel and energy (not for
purchases of all products and services within the economy) and unit transactions
would generally be automatic, integrated into existing credit-card and direct-debit
systems [51].
Those households using less than their entitlement of TEQs units would be able to sell
their surplus to the bank or post office at the prevailing national price (determined by
the auction price at the start of the week and varying with national demand thereafter).
Those who need more could buy these surplus units at the national price, with the
process of buying and selling comparable with topping up a mobile phone or travel
smart-card (e.g. London's Oyster cards). Similarly, overseas visitors, or others
without units, would simply pay a surcharge at the point of energy purchase,
determined by the retailer buying the necessary units on their behalf and passing on
the cost.
Figure 1: How TEQs units flow through the economy [40]
A full year’s supply of TEQs units would be issued via both entitlement and tender on
the first day of the scheme. From then on, the regular weekly issue of new units
would commence. Hence there would be a rolling year's supply of units in the
economy at all times.
As illustrated in Figure 1, after TEQs units pass from consumers to energy retailers at
the point of energy purchase, those same units would then pass from the retailers to
wholesalers as the retailers purchased their own energy supplies. They would
continue to flow up the energy supply chain until ultimately reaching the country's
primary energy providers and importers. Finally, these organisations would surrender
the units back to the original issuing body (registrar) in exchange for the right to
13
produce or import energy into the economy, in line with the national carbon budget.
In other words, at every point where energy moves through the economy, the units are
exchanged for the energy and thus flow in the opposite direction.
Crucially, this allows downstream public engagement without the need for an
extensive downstream compliance and enforcement process. Just as with cash, any
supplier who sold fuel or energy without ensuring the receipt of the requisite number
of TEQs units would quickly find themselves out of pocket when purchasing their
own supplies. And, just as with cash, the government does not need to monitor every
retailer to ensure that they are not giving away their stock. Nothing more than routine
auditing would be called for [22,52].
TEQs also seeks to combine the best of upstream and downstream policy by covering
all emissions from energy use within the economy, while requiring neither direct
measurements of emissions at the point of combustion nor a lifecycle analysis of
every possible product and service. Through the lifecycle carbon rating on fuels and
electricity, the emissions attributable to them can be quantified upstream. And since
energy is required for all economic activity, the emissions implicit in the production
of all goods and services are thus covered. For example, no TEQs units are
surrendered for the purchase of a chair, but the manufacturer of the chair will have
needed to purchase units, as will the company who transported it to the shop, and they
will pass the costs on to their customers (in the cash price that they charge). So,
downstream, consumers simply find that the cheaper option tends to be the lowercarbon
option, while retailers who are able to offer a lower-carbon supply chain
receive a clear competitive advantage.
With regard to goods imported from abroad (and on the assumption that there is not a
TEQs system or equivalent operating in the origin country), import tariffs will likely
be necessary to protect domestic producers. Until recently, such tariffs were deemed
politically unrealistic, but the World Trade Organisation have now admitted that their
rules do not prohibit such tariffs [209], and there is growing political recognition that in
the absence of a robust global agreement on climate change, tariffs are the only option
to defend countries that take their emissions responsibilities seriously [53,210]
Importantly, just as with carbon pricing, TEQs is not intended as a stand-alone policy,
but rather as “the umbrella mechanism within which a wide range of other policies
would operate” [46]. Indeed, it has the potential to create a far more receptive national
environment for the many vital carbon management tools covered in this journal and
elsewhere, from green taxation and sweeping standards-based regulation [204] to the
creation of low-carbon precincts [54] and atmospheric carbon removal technologies
such as agroecological soil carbon sequestration [55] or industrial direct air capture [56].
The key is that by ensuring the overall carbon budget is respected, TEQs provides the
overarching framework to shift such policies from worthwhile (yet sometimes
resented) drops in the ocean to essential and much-welcomed initiatives helping
society to thrive as it moves through a difficult energy transition.
We will examine the political climate around TEQs presently, but first let us consider
the ways in which it may outperform price-based mechanisms with regard to the
criteria outlined above.
14
Ensuring emissions reductions
As discussed above, quantity-based systems such as TEQs can guarantee achievement
of the national carbon budget over its full term in a way that carbon pricing cannot, as
long as the TEQs framework itself remains in place.
It should be noted that despite the current dominance of price-based and ‘soft cap’
approaches, the core debate between price-based and quantity-based approaches goes
back at least a century, with quantity-based approaches finding favour when the
stakes were at their highest and quantities least negotiable. Historian Mark
Roodhouse summarises that “the use of taxes alone to control consumption was
rejected in the World Wars, and they would not achieve the quick, dramatic cut in
carbon consumption that we need now to avert environmental disaster. Tradable
carbon rations would have a real impact, if the public could be persuaded that they are
necessary, temporary and fair” [57,58].
And it is in that last caveat that we find the real challenge for any effective climate
policy framework – persuading society as a whole that the framework should be
retained as it enables the tightening carbon budget to affect industry, lifestyle choices
and the economy as a whole.
This is where the literature on socio-technical transitions can make an essential
contribution. It emphasises that since society and its practices are made up of
“institutions, techniques and artefacts”, as well as “rules, practices and networks that
determine the ‘normal’ development and use of technologies” [11], we need to alter not
only our policy tools and structures, but also “markets, user practices, policy and
cultural meanings” [10].
As we will examine, TEQs engages fully with these imperatives. The real question
for the carbon management community, therefore, is not simply which frameworks
could theoretically enable effective and sufficient carbon reductions, but whether the
evidence from all relevant fields suggests that TEQs may stand a better chance than
the alternatives of doing so without being overthrown by public or political
opprobrium.
Public acceptability
We have seen above that carbon pricing frameworks have been struggling with
popularity, and this partly explains why public acceptability has been the most active
area of research into PCT schemes.
Fawcett's review of the research to date [36,46,59] shows that the findings are remarkably
consistent. When PCT schemes are compared with existing climate policies they are
usually preferred by the public, with the key benefits seen as fairness and
effectiveness. This popularity relative to the alternatives immediately makes PCT an
interesting proposition, especially considering that “the research highlighted that the
way that personal carbon trading is presented and described and the context in which
it is set, can have a considerable impact on its acceptability” [60]. Accordingly, even
more positive results might be expected from acceptability research which put
15
significant effort into framing and communicating the TEQs scheme's design and
principles. Interestingly, the research to date also identified that respondents who
were not in favour were primarily concerned about implementation and unfairness,
which serves to underline the importance of perceived fairness in achieving social
acceptance [46].
TEQs addresses such concerns over fairness in three main ways. Firstly, the system is
based on the principle of equal per capita allowances for all, with the guaranteed
regular entitlement of TEQs units for every individual designed to ensure that
essential 'subsistence emissions' are safeguarded as society adapts to a low or no
carbon future, irrespective of the price trends of TEQs units [39]. As mentioned above,
what constitutes 'subsistence' or 'luxury' is highly culturally subjective and subject to
change over longer periods, but TEQs incorporates these shifting perspectives by
leaving these choices with the energy consumer.
If a citizen wishes to consume more than her share she may do so – and without
compromising the integrity of the emissions cap – but only if she is willing to, in
effect, pay those who use less for the privilege of doing so. And if others wish to be
exceptionally energy-thrifty, they can expect to be rewarded for this. This freedom
for individuals, families and communities to decide for themselves what is essential
and what is not is critical both politically and practically. Sharing ownership of the
problem across society encourages both active, engaged participation in creatively
reducing energy demand, and a sense of legitimacy around the TEQs framework,
which can be seen guaranteeing entitlements to essential energy while defending
people's independence from excessive top-down regulation and/or taxation [40,61].
Secondly, TEQs is a progressive policy instrument, since lower income households
tend to use less energy and thus could sell surplus allowances to gain extra income.
Distributional impact modelling has found that 71% of households in the lowest three
income deciles would be better off under TEQs, while 55% of households in the
highest three income deciles would be worse off. From a total of 24.6m UK
households, 2.1m (8.5%) would be low-income households that would be worse off
[62,63]. However, this is an important minority, primarily because they may not be in
any position to be further disadvantaged, but also because any opposition to the
scheme after implementation would be likely to focus on those in difficulty.
Consequently, further research has been undertaken into moderating the distributional
impacts on these households, finding that all but 250,000 of the poorest 10% of
households could be compensated through the benefits system [64]. Finding ways to
identify these remaining 250,000 households and target them with compensatory
measures remains an area of active research [65].
And thirdly, TEQs provides an alternative to the unpopular 'rationing by price'
approach currently in effect. While TEQs incorporates a market mechanism to do
what markets do best – finding a price for scarce goods and facilitating exchange – it
is not a market-based framework. Rather, it is a framework within which the market
would be constrained, in line with the national carbon budget; the ongoing financial
crises of recent times show all too clearly that markets are not good at regulating their
own appetites. It is not what they are for.
16
At the heart of TEQs is a non-negotiable respect for the limits set by physical reality,
as revealed by climate science. This gives society as a whole a clear signal as to
future emissions limits, stimulating a collective focus on adapting to these limits. In
particular, government need no longer concern itself with attempting to raise the
carbon price, but can straightforwardly join and support [66] the collective drive to
keep the price of energy as low as possible. This is a simply-understood task that all
sectors of society can enthusiastically engage with.
A longer-term perspective
An independent body responsible for setting national carbon budgets (or 'cumulative
emissions pathways' [67]) decades in advance, was anticipated by the TEQs literature
[68] and is now extant in the UK in the form of the Committee on Climate Change.
However, the Committee currently lacks a means to see its budgets effectively
implemented.
This undermines the benefits of its long-term carbon budgeting, as investors across
society recognise both the uncertainty that the budgets will be achieved and
government inconstancy in defending the budgets themselves. TEQs would provide a
clear, consistent policy framework to guarantee the budgets, while its acceptability
benefits (and the public engagement anticipated in the next section) would offer the
greatest possible confidence that the framework will persist over the long-term.
The system would also aid confident long-term financial budgeting across the
economy by helping to stabilise national energy prices in the face of global
fluctuations. If global energy prices rose, this would be reflected in reduced national
demand for energy and thus for TEQs units. As a consequence, the TEQs unit price
would drop as global energy prices rose, and vice versa, leaving the effective price
paid by energy users (energy price + TEQs price) more stable than the price of either
energy or TEQs units alone.
Integration – cross-sector engagement, motivation and collaboration
TEQs’ design draws on principles from social psychology. It is explicitly designed to
generate a shared sense of common purpose (or, in behavioural economics terms,
“conditional co-operation”[69]) in a nation, in recognition of both the vital role of
public engagement in any large-scale transition [11], and the fact that social forces are
an important and enduring influence on individual choices [70,71].
All sectors buy and sell TEQs units at a single national price, and since supply of the
units is fixed by the hard cap, the fluctuations in this price are determined solely by
national demand for (carbon-rated) energy. Hence, it is in all sectors' interest to keep
this price low, not only by reducing their own energy use (or its carbon intensity), but
also by collaborating with others in doing so, and bringing pressure to bear on those
who are perceived to not be 'pulling their weight'. In this way, it aligns individual and
collective interests in order to harness the creativity and innovation of a nation
towards the clearly-visible aim of lower energy prices [40,47], providing “a perceptual
17
and cognitive framework enabling individuals to integrate understanding across
emissions from different activities, and in the context of energy use as it occurs” [35].
In addition, a number of studies suggest that the clear demarcation of a 'normal' or
even 'appropriate' level of carbon consumption (in the form of the declining
entitlement) may be expected to reduce energy demand accordingly, with the high
visibility of the national price of TEQs units also generating positive mental
accounting effects and generating 'stop and think moments' that disrupt high-carbon
habits [66,72,73]. The public's understanding of their own energy use and emissions will
inevitably improve, with the national TEQs price – published daily in the press and
online [47] – providing a clear indicator of how successfully, or otherwise, the country
is adapting to its carbon cap. Research suggests that as such understanding grows and
people gain a sense that they are contributing to an adequate solution, they may
become increasingly committed (even morally) to 'doing their bit' to play a role in an
overall solution, and thus more supportive of ambitious climate policy [74,75].
Also, as Smith and colleagues note, “even in transition contexts where end-points are
highly contested or only partially understood, ideas about what might (or ought to) be
are essential to envisioning the possibility, let alone motivating the pursuit, of change”
[11]. A positive, enticing image of where we are headed is essential, and with the UK
government itself bound by the TEQs framework, it would be far better placed for the
task of articulating a coherent vision [76] for the low-carbon society that its Climate
Change Act commits the country to.
Above all, while academics and policy-makers can try to predict some of the societal
effects of a transparent and accessible carbon framework, under TEQs the need to do
so is removed. No longer would government be responsible for micro-managing the
transition itself. Instead, once the common frame is set, many of the changes within
that framework can be allowed to emerge organically, in the diverse – even ‘messy’ –
way that new collaborations and local innovations tend to develop [40,77]. Such
‘bottom up’ initiative and ownership is also likely to encourage wider engagement
with, and buy-in to, the overall societal transition [78].
However, while acknowledging that, “from this distance, it is hard to describe its
nature in any detail”, Fleming has nonetheless speculated as to some of the forms
such cross-sector co-operation might take, from communities and companies cooperating
in sourcing local goods and services to households working together on
conservation, renewable energy systems, repairs and local food [40]. Where
supplementary institutional support is needed, it will be called for by those involved –
those individuals, communities or institutions with intimate knowledge of the
practical detail – rather than government or NGOs trying to develop and provide
resources and/or expertise on the basis of what they anticipate may be needed [11,61].
Meanwhile, the revenue from the auction of TEQs units provides funds that can be
pulled down by those involved in such projects [40] (see supplementary discussion
below for more on auction revenue allocation).
Some such collaborations do already exist, with the Transition Towns movement and
its REconomy strand, for example, providing a myriad of practical examples of such
cross-sector co-operation towards reduction in energy demand and carbon emissions
[79,211]. Crucially, however, under current policy frameworks such efforts are always
18
swimming against the tide. For example, a hard-won reduction in petrol use in one
city might serve to bring down the price a little, thus encouraging greater consumption
elsewhere and leading to little or no net reduction in emissions. Understanding this
can be disheartening for those trying to contribute towards large-scale problems like
climate change, which helps explain why those involved with such local climate
initiatives have consistently been among the strongest campaigners for TEQs [80,81].
With its hard cap on emissions in place, TEQs would reverse this effect. Any local
reductions in energy use would not only save money for those involved, but also play
a clear, practical part in aiding the energy transition of the nation as a whole, with the
contribution to lower energy prices for all becoming a straightforwardly desirable
outcome which helps to defend the political sustainability of the TEQs framework and
its hard cap. The implementation of TEQs would provide clear reassurance that we
really are ‘all in it together' at the national scale, greatly diminishing established
psychological barriers to energy demand reduction such as concerns about free riders
and the sense that your personal contribution cannot make a difference [47,82].
TEQs is also here drawing on the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation. By defining a clearly understood and intrinsically desirable goal
(sustaining affordable access to energy, and by so doing ensuring that the nation plays
its part in preserving a benign climate), TEQs aims to make shared intrinsic
motivation explicit across society.
Note that even those individuals with below-average energy use who regularly have
surplus to sell from their TEQs entitlement – who might be thought to gain financially
from high TEQs unit prices – would not stand to benefit from rises in national
(carbon-rated) energy demand. Such rises would cause the price of both TEQs units
and energy to increase, so in addition to a direct rise in the price of their energy
purchases (offset to some extent by increased income from the sale of their TEQs
entitlement) our energy-thrifty individual would encounter a general increase in the
prices of products and services throughout the economy, caused by higher energy
prices. Even in the unlikely scenario that such an individual mistakenly believed that
TEQs unit price rises were in their personal short-term financial interest and decided
to attempt to drive them up by somehow blocking demand reduction, they could come
under intense peer pressure to desist. In a society consciously working hard to adapt
to the energy transition those seen as responsible for raising energy prices might be
treated even less warmly than they are today. The tide would have turned.
This focus on the importance of intrinsic motivation again draws on social psychology
research, which shows not only that external financial incentives and disincentives
generally fail to produce improved performance at tasks requiring long-term
behaviour change, insight or creativity, but that they can actually have a detrimental
effect. This is because they can undermine both people's belief in their own abilities
and any pre-existing intrinsic motivation towards the goal [83,84,85], while acting to
reinforce materialistic values and frames (that have been found to suppress systemic
concern for society or the shared environment) [84]. Accordingly, policy based purely
on financial rewards and/or penalties may be unsuited to stimulating radical sociotechnical
transitions from the grassroots up; such policy runs the risk of
unintentionally engaging society’s ingenuity in the wrong challenge – that of seeking
19
out clever ways to receive the rewards or avoid the penalties without heed to the
policy's intended aim – instead of that of reducing collective energy demand.
In short, as the UK Environmental Audit Committee's report into PCT summarised,
“We remain to be convinced that price signals alone would encourage significant
behavioural change comparable with that resulting from a carbon allowance … A
meaningful reduction in emissions will only be achieved, and maintained, with
significant and urgent behavioural change.” [34].
Having examined the arguments as to why TEQs may represent a more appropriate
carbon management framework than carbon pricing, we now outline TEQs' political
and research history, and consider why it has not yet moved closer to implementation.
A political history of TEQs
The TEQs framework was developed in 1996 [40,86,87]. In 2004 eleven UK MPs, led
by Colin Challen (who would later found the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Climate Change), introduced a Private Members' Bill advocating the scheme [88]. This
led to extensive international research and popular interest, although much of this was
published in the form of books and reports rather than in academic journals
[49,80,81,89,90,91,92].
In 2006 the then Secretary of State for Environment, David Miliband, gave a strong
speech in support of PCT, shortly followed by the announcement of a feasibility
study, which was completed in 2008 [93,94]. The authors of the four reports that make
up this study were instructed to take the TEQs scheme as their subject, since this was
deemed to provide the best insight into the merits or otherwise of PCT as a model [95].
The study found that there were no technical obstacles to implementation, that PCT
would be a progressive policy and that public acceptability was comparable with, or
slightly better than, the presented alternatives of upstream trading and carbon taxation
(these conclusions were in line with the existing wider research into PCT).
However, the most influential report within the study assessed the “potential
effectiveness and strategic fit” of PCT [96]. Unlike the other reports, this explicitly
considered a PCA scheme (i.e. PCT applied only to individuals), thus removing
several of the key benefits that TEQs claims, such as providing a framework for
intrinsic motivation, innovation and common purpose. It also argued that
“uncertainty about how high the price of allowances may go poses a political risk that
makes it unlikely that a hard cap would be used” and argued instead for a more
flexible 'soft cap', whereby the cap is loosened if prices go too high. In other words,
before conducting its analysis it converted PCAs into a price-based framework. On
this basis, its analysis concluded that the costs of PCT would outweigh the benefits,
leading to Defra's overall conclusion that “personal carbon trading has potential to
engage individuals in taking action to combat climate change, but is essentially ahead
of its time and expected costs for implementation are high.”
20
Accordingly, Defra announced that “the Government remains interested in the
concept of personal carbon trading and, although it will not be continuing its research
programme at this stage, it will monitor the wealth of research focusing on this area
and may introduce personal carbon trading if the value of carbon savings and cost
implications change”[95].
A number of thoughtful and critical responses to the government's decision to
discontinue its research programme followed, including from The Lean Economy
Connection [22], the Centre for Sustainable Energy [212] and the Institute for Public
Policy Research [97]. Significantly, the influential House of Commons Environmental
Audit Committee (EAC) published its own report just a few weeks after Defra's,
based on its own concurrent collection of evidence. This described PCT as “the kind
of radical measure needed to bring about behavioural change”, “regretted” Defra's
decision to discontinue its research programme and concluded that PCT “could be
essential in helping to reduce our national carbon footprint…Although we commend
the Government for its intention to maintain engagement in academic work on the
topic, we urge it to undertake a stronger role, leading and shaping debate and
coordinating research.” [34].
However, the UK government's response to this report largely restated the findings of
Defra's feasibility study and did not express any change of viewpoint in response to
the EAC's evidence and support, reiterating the opinion that high costs and fears over
public acceptability outweighed the potential of the proposition [98]. There were press
claims that the idea had been banned by Gordon Brown at the Treasury [213].
This slowed the momentum behind the scheme, although in June 2009 a ministerial
debate was called by Tim Yeo MP, then chair of the EAC, who opened with the
statement “Whatever we are doing now by way of generating low-carbon electricity,
constructing more energy-efficient buildings, developing low-emission vehicles and
so on, it is nowhere near enough…Every single citizen as a consumer needs to be
directly engaged in the battle against climate change. That is why personal carbon
trading deserves far more attention than it is getting, either from the Government or
from other people”. He went on to call for a pilot scheme, volunteering the Barbergh
District Council area in his own constituency of South Suffolk for the role [99]. There
is significant debate within the research community as to whether PCT is suited to a
pilot (which would be likely to have its effectiveness undermined by significant
boundary issues, as well as limited duration and participation [90,100,101]), and this
opportunity was not pursued, but interest in the idea remained, with academic
research continuing to accelerate [59]. After the 2010 UK general election Tim Yeo
became Chair of the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select
Committee, and has remained a keen advocate of PCT [102,214].
High-profile public support over the next couple of years included the Sustainable
Development Commission highlighting PCT as one of nineteen breakthrough ideas
for the 21st
century [103], and the chairman of the Environment Agency declaring that
“rationing is the fairest and most effective way of meeting Britain’s legally binding
targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions” [215].
The government's commitment to monitor future PCT research, and to reconsider
implementation if higher benefits or lower costs could be demonstrated, prompted the
All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil to publish a report into TEQs in 2011.
21
This made a strong case that the government's criteria for again considering the
introduction of TEQs had been met, and that a fresh and thorough feasibility
evaluation was now called for [40].
Drawing on the research published since 2008, the report argued that Defra's costbenefit
analysis had taken its cost estimate from an analysis of a whole-economy
TEQs scheme [51] while comparing this with the benefits of a more limited
households-only PCA scheme [96]; that the likely costs of a TEQs scheme would be far
lower [22,97] ; that Defra's purely financial analysis failed to give regard to several
additional benefits of TEQs, including ensuring fair entitlements to energy during
reductions in supply (whether due to rapid decarbonisation or insecure energy supply
chains) [40], shifting perceived norms in acceptable behaviour [66], contributing to a
national sense of common purpose and the importance of the hard cap in providing
both effectiveness and an improved long-term signal [22]; and that the methodology
adopted in the cost-benefit analysis was subject to such large uncertainties over
critical variables that even with all of these shortcomings the conclusion could still
easily have been positive [104].
The association with a cross-party parliamentary group and a report launch featuring
presentations from high-profile MPs helped the report to achieve extensive media
coverage, both nationally and internationally [216]. However, it garnered no official
response from Decc, who later confirmed that despite the government's commitment
to monitor ongoing research, the department had no staff allocated to take
responsibility for this area [105].
As a consequence, without a public groundswell of support to drive political
engagement with such radical climate policy, TEQs' development (and that of PCT
generally) has slowed. Nonetheless, it remains core policy for the Green Party of
England and Wales [217], while Sweden’s Green Party [218] and Left Party [219] have
both passed resolutions in support of a feasibility study. Dario Tamburrano MEP, of
Italy’s Five Star Movement, is another significant, long-standing advocate within
European politics [220], while wider interest is sustained by academia [36,59,221], NGOs
[106,107,222], independent campaigners [223,224], community groups [101] and a PCT-related
trial on Norfolk Island, a self-governing protectorate of 1,750 people 1,600 km east of
Australia [108,225].
As the EAC concluded in 2008, “what is needed, urgently, is a shift in the debate
away from ever-deeper and more detailed consideration of how personal carbon
trading could operate towards the more decisive questions of how it could be made
publicly and politically acceptable” [34].
Conclusion
As Maslow noted, “...it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat
everything as if it were a nail”[109]. The carbon management community must frankly
recognise the inherent shortcomings of our hammer – carbon pricing – as a
framework for a task as delicate and demanding as the socio-technical transitions
needed to rapidly limit emissions. This article has laid out a number of these
22
shortcomings and outlined several principles that we believe are essential if any
framework is to stimulate an effective, sufficient reduction in emissions.
Given the stakes, we argue that the climate policy community should favour quantitybased
frameworks that can guarantee the emissions trajectory that science demands.
With such a firm framework established, economists, designers, engineers, policy
specialists, society and the market could unleash their full focus on devising brilliant
means for maximising wellbeing within that context. And we have evidenced the
case that the TEQs framework stands the best chance of retaining the requisite public
support and engagement over the long-term.
Returning to political realities, the implementation of such an unyielding framework
will only happen if the political risk of failing to prevent the destabilisation of our
climate comes to be seen as outweighing the risk of high prices. This would
undoubtedly represent a fundamental shift in the direction of both politics and carbon
policy. Yet, if we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are
headed.
The UK government's description of TEQs as 'ahead of its time' in 2008 implied that
it was too radical and too different from the prevailing public and political thinking.
However, Fawcett highlights that this charge could also be laid against that
government's own Climate Change Act pledge of 50% carbon reductions by 2025 [46].
In relation to current emissions trends the government's target must itself be
recognised as radical, and any reasonable definition of 'politically realistic' must
include holding governments to existing legally-binding policy. Any government
with such commitments cannot shy away from the policy framework that can actually
enable the deep socio-technical changes needed to deliver these targets (as well as
laying the groundwork for the yet greater ambition many scientists deem necessary
[110]).
For our part, the carbon management community must take responsibility for
reminding governments of this, in every way open to us, in order to address our own
complicity in perpetuating the science/politics rift described above. It behoves us all
to consistently remind ourselves and others of the severity of the likely climatic
consequences should such a framework be abandoned (or never adopted). If political
and scientific reality are not reconciled, only one will pull rank. Allowing this would
be perhaps the greatest abrogation of responsibility ever seen.
Future Perspective
The coming years are the 'last chance saloon' for climate policy. Continued failure to
address atmospheric concentrations of GHGs is likely to mean committing our planet
to climate destabilisation [1,2,3,6], while consigning the field of carbon management to
failed obsolescence. As Kevin Anderson put it at the December 2013 Radical
Emissions Reduction conference, “avoiding dangerous climate change remains a
feasible goal of the international community. Just.” [111] Significant changes to
energy supply infrastructure are not possible on such a short timescale, so dramatic
energy demand reductions of the kind that TEQs was designed to facilitate are now
23
the only option, allowing time for low-carbon energy supply to come on stream [40,
204].
Bird and Lockwood [97] and Fawcett [59] have argued that the most likely political
circumstance to lead to the introduction of TEQs or any form of PCT is the
convergence of three factors: the failure to meet national greenhouse gas reduction
targets; political leaders needing new ideas in the face of pressure from the public,
NGOs or other powerful stakeholders; and a fully developed policy option, ready to
go.
Whilst the first of these is already unfolding before us, we in the carbon management
community have a role to play in all three factors if society is to achieve
decarbonisation. With regard to the first – the failure of current policy – we must
communicate: we have access to resources and knowledge, and the responsibility to
use these for the benefit of all. We can speak up, both within academia and more
widely, about the failure to meet targets. And we can use our positions to
demonstrate both that the findings of climatology demand more rigorous targets and
that radical policies to deliver the required targets are available.
We can also actively contribute to the second factor by helping build pressure on
governments and creating the political space for radical policy change. Extreme
weather events continue to contribute to this, from Hurricane Katrina to the 2014
flooding in the UK [226], but as powerful and well-informed stakeholders we must play
our part. For too long our community has sheltered behind the notion that our
responsibility is simply to publish research and hope that it is picked up. If we
exercised our minds individually and collectively, utilising an understanding of how
to realise socio-technical transitions, we could devise many effective ways of building
and using our influence, for example through shared petitions, position papers and
writing for wider print and social media. In this era where research is increasingly
assessed on its ‘impact’, many opportunities present themselves. We can also work
collaboratively with NGOs, activists and progressive companies/think-tanks,
informing their work as to appropriate policy interventions, and supporting them in
building the widespread public support for policy change that is required.
Finally, we can further develop the evidence base behind TEQs by contributing to a
comprehensive research programme informed by political and social realities. This
could be undertaken in the old 'winner takes all' model, where one large research
centre successfully bids for funding to carry out the complete programme. However,
more likely, this programme will be as internationally dispersed and diverse as the
research carried out into TEQs/PCT to date, with some carried out by established
centres with grant funding and some driven by the good will and enthusiasm of
individuals, communities, research centres, businesses and NGOs. Other papers have
already sketched out a multidisciplinary research and implementation programme
[38,45,46,59,90,100]. What matters is that this effort is targeted and collaborative, so that we
develop a robustly evidenced, ready-to-go policy option that satisfies the needs of
every stakeholder, from politicians to the public, from industry to the third sector.
While there is broad consensus within the research community that outstanding
questions remain to be answered before TEQs is implemented, there is much that can
be done now towards that end. In the words of the UK House of Commons
24
Environmental Audit Committee, “there is no barrier to the Government developing
and deploying the policies that will not only prepare the ground for personal carbon
trading, but which will ensure its effectiveness and acceptance once implemented”
[34].
That implementation represents the point at which calculating appropriate emissions
pathways would become more than a paper exercise. In the fight against the
destabilisation of our climate, society would finally have teeth.
25
Supplementary discussion
The discussion below addresses a number of issues that were raised during peer
review, but are beyond the scope of the main article. This acts as an important
supplement to the main text, and may serve to deepen the reader’s understanding of
the features and implications of the TEQs system.
Irrational abatement
Elderkin argues that the potential effects of TEQs anticipated in the social psychology
literature may lead to “irrational abatement”, whereby those whose energy usage
exceeds their entitlement of TEQs units spend more on reducing their energy demand
than it would cost them to simply buy more TEQs units [96,112].
This can be seen as deleterious, as it involves members of society spending more on
reducing emissions than they are obliged to. Such behaviour is termed “irrational” on
the assumption that since adequate emissions reductions are ensured by the cap, the
rational economic approach is to minimise the financial cost to individuals and society
of living within it.
However, such an analysis neglects the overarching clash of physical and political
reality that this article addresses. Implementing TEQs would not guarantee an
effective cap on emissions over the long term, because the TEQs framework itself
(like the UK Climate Change Act) would remain vulnerable to shifting political
priorities. As discussed in the main article, “while it is tempting to think of a
tightening cap on emissions as a solution in itself, the true challenge is to transform
our society so that it can thrive within this limit. If we fail in this, the political
pressure to loosen or abandon any cap will become irresistible”[40].
Consequently, even with a potentially effective carbon management framework
implemented, it is to be welcomed if higher-emissions individuals choose to spend
their own money on reducing their emissions towards the average. By doing so they
take on more than their proportional share of responsibility for easing society’s
difficult transition towards a more equitable, low-carbon future; they help to heal the
rift in realism, as well as defending the political feasibility of yet more ambitious
carbon caps, should they prove necessary. Such actions would sit comfortably
alongside other ‘financially irrational’ actions such as purchasing EU ETS emissions
permits simply to retire them, as some have chosen to do via the Sandbag scheme [227].
Without venturing into a deeper discussion of economic theory beyond the scope of
this article, it is worth mentioning that the marginal utility of money is widely
recognised to be greater for those with less of it, and that the higher-emissions
individuals that we are discussing here tend to be in the higher income deciles, as
26
explored in the main article. Hence there may be a case to support higher-income
individuals contributing more than their proportional share, especially if done
voluntarily [204]. Four decades of wellbeing research corroborates this, showing that at
every scale, once basic needs are met, increased wellbeing correlates not with
increased wealth [113,114,115,116,117], but rather with giving, connecting with others and
serving a wider purpose [113,114,115,117,118].
In short, we maintain that if TEQs encourages “irrational abatement”, this is no bad
thing. Indeed, it can be seen as a perfectly rational, effective way of enhancing
personal, collective and planetary wellbeing [114,117,118]. What we should most fear is
growing resignation that physical and political reality may prove irreconcilable (thus
potentially threatening the very continued existence of a human economy), not the
prospect of some individuals spending more than they are obliged to on reconciling
them.
Allocation of auction/tender revenue
Many proposed and actual climate policy frameworks generate government revenue,
either through auctioning emissions rights (as TEQs would) or taxing emissions.
These funds might be redirected towards other government expenditures, but where
they are to be used to further climate policy goals, two proposed uses of this income
are widely advocated.
Under some proposals (such as Cap & Dividend or revenue-neutral carbon taxes like
Fee & Dividend [208,228]), the income is fully recycled to the general population on an
equal per capita basis, meaning that below-average emitters benefit financially from
the scheme. As discussed in the main article, this helps to defend the political
sustainability of the climate policy framework in question through its progressive
effect, defending the subsistence emissions of the poorest.
Under other proposals (such as Kyoto2 [229]) the income is reserved (hypothecated) for
use in supporting the energy transition. This helps to defend the political
sustainability of the scheme by providing funds to smooth the necessary changes,
perhaps through funding renewable energy schemes, subsidising public transport or
providing support, advice and grants for household or community energy demand
reduction initiatives.
Depending on how it is administered and used, the ‘transition fund’ generated by the
second approach may prove more beneficial to the poorest members of society and to
society as a whole than simple revenue-recycling. It might, for example, fund largerscale
infrastructure projects (e.g. tram systems) which allow whole cities to reduce the
carbon-intensity of their personal daily lifestyles. Conversely, it could be channelled
into ‘white elephant’ schemes that provide little benefit for the money.
TEQs, as described by Fleming, adopts a middle way – the free entitlement of TEQs
units to the general population is a form of revenue recycling, while the revenue
27
generated by the auction of TEQs units to organisations is hypothecated to support the
energy transition [40,47].
Fleming’s reasons for this were a recognition that ensuring subsistence emissions was
essential to the scheme, combined with a belief that the necessary radical societal
energy transition will require activity at the collective level. Infrastructure will need
to be redesigned, renewable energy projects developed, and so forth, and so there will
be a need for funds that collaborative cross-sectoral partnerships can call on [47]. In
short, this is another feature designed to encourage society to work together. Defra
assessed the scheme on the basis that:
“A rational response to a trading system is to compare the cost of allowances with the
cost of reducing one’s own emissions, taking into account any wider personal benefits
there are from undertaking abatement personally” [96].
Yet Fleming designed TEQs as a challenge to such definitions of rationality. He
explicitly tried to align the personal aims of people and organisations with communal
and societal aims. In his own words,
“The economics of the future will be benignly and inextricably entangled with social
capital, with intense links of reciprocity, in comparison with which the reduction of
economic and social relations to the piteous simplicities of prices is not up to standard
any longer, and is due for retirement”[119].
As in the classic non-zero sum ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, only getting beyond personal
self-interest allows for the maximisation of benefits to all, in this case by unlocking
emissions reduction opportunities that are not available to solitary people or
organisations – nor to society as a whole – without collaboration [22].
Under TEQs, the entitlement guarantees an essential safety net for the poorest, but the
extent to which society as a whole benefits from the hypothecation of revenue
depends upon the extent to which society as a whole comes to redefine self-interest as
collective.
TEQs and downstream engagement
As discussed in the main article, TEQs is designed to achieve downstream public
engagement without the need for the expensive impracticality of downstream
emissions measurement or enforcement, nor lifecycle analysis of every possible
product and service. Nonetheless, extensive public engagement is intrinsically more
costly than the lack of it, and so alternative upstream policy frameworks such as Cap
& Dividend are inherently cheaper than TEQs.
We have examined in some detail why public engagement is essential to an effective
societal response to climate change, and how TEQs seeks to engender this. However,
Starkey usefully highlights the importance of the distinction between the two methods
of surrendering TEQs units; the surrender of units from one’s carbon account at the
28
point of purchase he terms S1 surrender, and the alternative of paying for units at the
point of energy purchase he terms S2 surrender [50,112].
He argues that if every participant in the economy opted for S2 surrender – with every
individual instructing their bank to sell all of their TEQs units as soon as they were
received into their account, and later repurchasing the units they require via energy
retailers when buying energy – then many of the anticipated benefits of TEQs would
cease to apply.
TEQs would be, in essence, reduced to an upstream scheme, similar to the Cap &
Dividend or Cap and Share proposals [228,230,231], but retaining the higher costs of
implementation associated with the infrastructure of the (now redundant) downstream
TEQs unit accounts. This raises the question of the expected ratio between S1 and S2
surrender (among both individuals, who receive an entitlement; and organisations,
which do not). Starkey highlights that this has not been widely addressed in the
literature to date, so we do so here.
S1/S2 for individuals
As Starkey notes, the literature to date has assumed negligible levels of S2 among
individuals, without generally presenting explicit arguments as to why this might be
the case [112].
Having recognised this, he presents three arguments that could be made in defence of
this widespread position. Firstly, that individuals may be keen to take part in S1 in
order to maximise the usefulness of the carbon statements associated with their TEQs
account, allowing them to easily tell whether their energy emissions are above or
below average. Secondly, that engaging in S2 would not be in their financial interest,
leaving them paying a small premium when repurchasing their TEQs units. And
thirdly, that risk-averse individuals might prefer the certainty of an entitlement to
energy to be surrendered via S1 over the uncertain price of repurchasing one via S2.
He also presents two possible reasons why individuals might take up S2 to a
significant degree. Firstly, that they might consider it simpler to ask their bank to sell
their entitlement on their behalf and then repurchase the units later, rather than use
their entitlement directly. And secondly, that if TEQs were implemented via a
separate ‘carbon card’ (rather than through integration with existing credit/debit card
systems), it might save time at a petrol station to avoid the use of such a card [112].
Since the government feasibility study found that adding functionality to existing
credit/debit cards would be more practical and effective than a separate ‘carbon card’
[51], the last factor would likely not apply, and this also significantly reduces the other
proposed motivation for significant S2 adoption among individuals – if anything it
would be easier (as well as cheaper, more informative and less risky) to surrender via
S1 than to take the active decision to instruct your bank to sell all of your units as
soon as they arrive into your account. In this respect, TEQs appears to achieve the
universal aim of downstream climate policy – to maximise public engagement while
minimising public hassle.
29
We would also suggest further reasons why individuals may partake in S1 surrender.
Some individuals might recognise the value of the TEQs framework and be keen to
maximise its impact on society; those with a personal interest in decarbonising their
life might enjoy careful management and scrutiny of their TEQs account; and there
might be a certain satisfaction in arriving at the energy retailer knowing that you have
an account replete with more than the necessary TEQs units. This is not an
exhaustive list. As Fleming argues, perhaps the biggest reason not to opt out of S1 is
that you would be to some extent opting out of the adaptation to a low-carbon society
that TEQs is designed to engender, and would be likely to “be in for a shock” when
your high-carbon lifestyle becomes prohibitively expensive [47].
Accordingly, we believe that the universal assumption that S1 surrender will dominate
among individuals is justified. In line with the rest of the research community, we see
S2 as a ‘fall back option’ for individuals who arrive at the retailer without any units,
either because they have run out, or because they do not have access to a TEQs
account (e.g. foreign tourists).
S1/S2 for organisations
The situation for organisations – which do not receive an entitlement of units – is less
clear-cut. As Starkey points out, Fleming consistently argued that organisations
would undertake significant S1 surrender [40,47,112], and thus strongly objected to the
explicit assumption in the feasibility study that “the c.2 million organisations that
exist in the UK will not be exchanging [TEQs units]” [22,51].
This assumption is indeed indefensible – at the least, companies in the energy supply
chain will be receiving units from their customers and surrendering them – but
Starkey nonetheless argues convincingly that a significant proportion of organisations
might choose the S2 option for surrender. In other words, they might ‘pay as they go’
by purchasing TEQs units at the point of energy purchase, rather than carefully
monitoring their TEQs reserve for maximum advantage as Fleming anticipated [47].
Starkey also makes the case, based on experience with the UK’s CRC Energy
Efficiency scheme, that S1 may prove efficient for larger organisations, while S2
might be preferable for smaller organisations [112].
Fortunately, extensive S2 surrender among organisations appears less problematic for
the benefits of the TEQs scheme than extensive S2 surrender among individuals might
be. Commercial organisations in particular are likely to be aware of the financial
impacts of their energy consumption whichever surrender method is used, and to
recognise the value of both reducing their own energy costs and those of their supply
chain (via the national price). In addition, the staff of organisations are, of course,
themselves individuals, who would be dealing with their own personal TEQs
budgeting, with all the associated social psychological effects that the literature
highlights. Meanwhile, the high-profile national price of TEQs would provide a clear
indicator to all sectors as to how well the nation as a whole is adapting to its reducing
carbon cap.
Hence, we believe that the motivation and active participation of organisations in the
common drive towards a low-carbon future is not dependent on their ratio of S1:S2
30
surrender. The overall societal transition – and their place in it – should remain clear
to them regardless of the chosen method of unit surrender.
Indeed, Starkey’s work suggests to us the possibility that the cost of the TEQs
infrastructure could potentially be reduced by introducing organisational TEQs unit
accounts only for those large organisations covered by the EU ETS and CRC [112],
leaving smaller organisations to participate purely through S2 surrender. This
speculative new variant would require further consideration.
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(Accessed December 2014)
203 The Telegraph. Scrap the Climate Change Act to keep the lights on, says Owen
Paterson.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11156113/Scrap-the-Climate-Change-
Act-to-keep-the-lights-on-says-Owen-Paterson.html
(Accessed December 2014)
204 Kevin Anderson. Why carbon prices can’t deliver the 2°C target.
www.kevinanderson.info/blog/why-carbon-prices-cant-deliver-the-2c-target/
(Accessed December 2014)
205 The Telegraph. Climate camp activists demonstrate outside European Climate
Exchange.
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6098528/Climate-camp-activists-
demonstrate-outside-European-Climate-Exchange.html
(Accessed December 2014)
206 UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-
change/about
(Accessed December 2014)
207 International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook 2011 press release.
www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2011/pressrelease.pdf
(Accessed December 2014)
208 Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Carbon Fee and Dividend explained.
www.citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
(Accessed December 2014)
209 The Financial Times. WTO signals backing for border taxes.
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1be7d034-61b6-11de-9e03-00144feabdc0.html
(Accessed December 2014)
210 BBC News. Barroso trade threat on climate.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7201835.stm
(Accessed December 2014)
211 REconomy Project – Inspiring Enterprises
www.reconomy.org/inspiring-enterprises/
(Accessed December 2014)
212 Centre for Sustainable Energy. PCAs: 'feasible and fair' - but not in favour.
www.cse.org.uk/news/view/1332
(Accessed December 2014)
213 The Guardian. Carbon credits tick all the boxes. What's the delay?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/16/carbonemissions.labour
(Accessed December 2014)
214 European Media Network. Tory MP calls for personal carbon trading scheme.
www.euractiv.com/specialreport-prods-green-planet/pioneering-tory-mp-calls-
persona-news-513659
(Accessed December 2014)
215 The Times. Carbon ration account for all proposed by Environment Agency.
www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article2144768.ece
(Accessed December 2014)
216 TEQs. Media coverage of 2011 report launch.
www.teqs.net/media-coverage-and-launch-event/
(Accessed December 2014)
217 Green Party of England and Wales. Energy Policy.
www.policy.greenparty.org.uk/ey.html
(Accessed December 2014)
218 Effekt magazine. Green Party wants to investigate personal emissions quota.
www.effektmagasin.se/miljopartiet-vill-utreda-personliga-utslappskvoter
(translated from Swedish: www.tinyurl.com/q9ffeh6)
(Accessed December 2014)
219 Effekt magazine. The Dawn of the Personal Allowance.
www.effektmagasin.se/det-varas-for-personliga-utslappskvoter
(translated from Swedish: www.tinyurl.com/kquo5q3)
(Accessed December 2014)
220 Scribbles of an Alien Observer at the European Union. Innovation – Fiscal
Policies to decrease energy demand and emissions.
www.dariotamburrano.it/19/
(translated from Italian: www.tinyurl.com/mjuozun)
(Accessed December 2014)
221 Fleming Policy Centre Newsletter. Update from Dr. Chris Shaw, Oxford
University Environmental Change Institute.
www.eepurl.com/YKJi1
(Accessed December 2014)
222 Resource Cap Coalition.
www.ceeweb.org/rcc/
(Accessed December 2014)
223 Fleming Policy Centre.
www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/
(Accessed December 2014)
224 Allocation Energie (French campaign for TEQs).
www.allocation-energie.info/
(translated from French: www.tinyurl.com/nja3ffh)
(Accessed December 2014)
225 Sustainable Norfolk Island.
www.sustainablenorfolk.com/nicheproject.html
(Accessed December 2014)
226 Jonathon Porritt. The New Politics of Climate Change.
www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/new-politics-climate-change-0
(Accessed December 2014)
227 Sandbag. Destroy Carbon.
www.sandbag.org.uk/carbon/
(Accessed December 2014)
228 Cap and Dividend. The Bill.
www.climateandprosperity.org/the-bill/
(Accessed December 2014)
229 Kyoto 2 in a nutshell.
www.kyoto2.org/page159.html
(Accessed December 2014)
230 Cap and Share. How it works.
www.capandshare.org/howworks_basicidea.html
(Accessed December 2014)
231 Dark Optimism. TEQs (downstream) or Cap and Dividend (upstream)?
www.darkoptimism.org/2008/06/08/teqs-downstream-vs-cap-and-dividend-
upstream/
(Accessed December 2014)