Thursday, November 1, 2007

Senate panel passes climate change bill. And: Is a Ration Card in Your Future?

From Politico:

...The Lieberman-Warner bill would issue credits to carbon-emitting industrial sources — partly through auction and partly through direct allocation — and create a market in which those credits could be traded. A company that is able to reduce its emissions can then sell its excess credits; a polluting company would need to buy credits in the market.

That’s one idea.

The RSA — which, of course, is the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce — doesn’t want industry to have all the fun. It has another idea, one it unveiled at the National Press Club minutes before the Senate took up Lieberman-Warner....

In essence, Lieberman-Warner is an “up stream,” supply-side approach. It targets producers of energy but leaves no role for consumers — for the guy who actually flicks on the light switch. The RSA has that person in mind with its demand-side approach, called “personal carbon trading.”