Here’s a revolutionary plan from Sandbag that enables you and me to end carbon emissions by simply buying up and destroying European pollution permits by retiring them off the market, at $40 per permit or ton of CO2.
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Sandbag buys up carbon credits from those who have already made energy efficiency investments and as a result have cut their pollution to below their previous level. We buy these clean companies’ credits through Sandbag, and then destroy them so dirty companies can’t buy them.
Under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in Europe set up to meet Kyoto goals, big carbon pollution plants must buy permits to emit carbon dioxide, up to a limit or “cap”.
The Europeans set up their plan so that individuals could also buy these and trade them also. Americans can buy them too, through Sandbag.
When we buy these, this gets the permits out of the “trade” market; which has the effect of further tightening the “cap” or limit on emissions. The more of us buy permits, the more expensive it becomes to pollute and then cleaner ways of doing things will receive more investment.
Once polluting companies cannot buy more permits to pollute, they are forced to invest in making their operation less polluting. They can add renewable energy or efficiency measures.
Although these cap and trade rules affect mostly the largest polluters; oil and coal businesses, to a lessor extent they also push lessor polluters like cement companies and paper mills towards energy efficiency measures.
Under the energy legislation in the Senate now, the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act or CEJAPA pollution reduction investment will be incentivized by the same “capping” of emissions and “trading” of permits as in Europe.
Image: Steve Jurvetson
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