Personal Carbon Budgets: A Pestle Review

Alice Brock, Simon Kemp and Ian D. Williams
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Alice Brock: Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, University Rd., Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Simon Kemp: Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, University Rd., Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Ian D. Williams: Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, University Rd., Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Personal Carbon Budgets (PCBs) are a radical policy innovation that seek to reduce an individual’s carbon consumption. This review identifies three archetypes of PCBs in the current literature; Personal Carbon Trading, Carbon Tax and Carbon Labelling. We theorised that carbon trading could affect equity and allow quality of life and consumption to be driven by income rather than needs. We, therefore, developed a new model (Personal Carbon Allowance with no trading) to compare to existing archetypes. A PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) framework was applied to each archetype to analyse and compare their costs and benefits and to critically evaluate and identify which model may be the most appropriate to reduce emissions severely but equitably. We conclude that the only model that can achieve this is our proposed Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) model with no trading. PCA has a hard cap on emissions allowing for controllable severe cuts to emissions, and the lack of trading would prohibit those with wealth from continuing high-consumption lifestyles at the expense of those with lower incomes.

Keywords: carbon; emissions; policy; carbon budgeting; equality; carbon trading; equity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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