Carbon Emissions - Capping and Sharing

A major idea that is slowly gaining public and political awareness is a contraction and convergence. Convergence is where emissions for every single person in the world will 'converge' at a level that minimizes further climatic change (everyone is allowed to emit an equal, fair share). Contraction is where those people who currently emit above their global share must contract their amount of emissions produced to the global level.

At its core, C&C is about what share of carbon emissions each one of us on Earth are entitled to, and what we need to do to ensure ecological survival in the long run. We cannot say that people who live in the UK emit more CO2 because 'that's the way it just is' or that people who live in Equatorial Guinea must continue to live low-energy lifestyles because increasing emissions would contribute to destabilizing climate change. An acceptance of equity is fundamental to C&C. The concept is also generally associated with Aubrey Meyer, of the Global Commons Institute, and a ton of information and the science behind it is available on their website.

So why bring this up now? The parliamentary all-party group on climate change, chaired by Colin Challen MP, has demonstrated considerable interest in C&C, and I just recieved an email from some Oxford students today wanting to get a UK-wide student campaign on C&C up and running.

Yesterday evening, I was able to listen to a short overview by Dr. Will Howard, leading a campaign group called Cap and Share, which seeks to put contraction and convergence into practice by first setting a 'cap' on emissions, then 'sharing' out the right to emit carbon emissions equally among all people. Companies (the fossil-fuel burning ones) have to buy these entitlements from ordinary citizens in order to emit, which is effectively putting a price on carbon. The diagram below explains the basic idea.

Cap and Share is just getting off the ground (Will Howard is based in Machynlleth) so if you want to help out there are plenty of options available - just get in touch with him through the website! Also linked to Cap and Share is a kind of climate-Wikipedia-like thing, called Climate Cooperation, where anyone can contribute to building up a body of shared knowledge on climate change, get in touch with other campaigners in your area, and thoughts on tackling climate change - you provide the content!