While the voluntary carbon trading economy is booming (it tripled in 2007 to $331 million) the power of free-market economics has yet to directly connect our own personal actions with carbon emissions. This week, the UK nixed plans to get people to reduce their emissions via an exchange of personal emissions permits. Citing issues of practicality, the ministry said implementing the system would be excessively expensive and that the idea is “ahead of its time.”
The idea was based on the system used in the EU’s emissions trading scheme whereby industrial emitters can buy permits for the right to pollute and players who reduce their emissions can sell excess permits on the open market. The system has proven itself effective in combating sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States and is growing in popularity as a way to regulate carbon emissions from industrial players around the world.
However, making the jump to a personal exchange is quite ambitious. The biggest barrier is simply measuring one’s personal emissions. This would include home energy costs, travel, food and other goods purchased. British supermarket giant Tesco had plans to list the carbon footprint of the good it sells but has discovered how hard it is to calculate the carbon cost of individual grocery items.

