مزایای زیست محیطی و اقتصادی ناشی از مشارکت شهروندان در انتشار تجارت CO2 : راه حل های جایگزین کارآمد برای جبران داوطلبانه ی انتشار CO2

Over the last few months in the emerging and lucrative carbon project market, a growing number of organizations have proposed to offset citizens’ greenhouse gas emissions. The target of these carbon-offset initiatives is to satisfy the increasing demand of individuals wishing to take part in the fight against climate change. In this paper, we review and criticize these carbon-offsetting programs in general terms. We then propose an alternative that, in our opinion, should prove to be a better solution for citizens who are willing to pay for protecting the environment. This alternative is to organize citizens’ participation in carbon emissions trading on a large scale in order to purchase and retire (destroy) CO2 permits. To do so, a benevolent Regulator or non-governmental organization must correct certain CO2 emissions market failures; this particularly concerns the high transaction costs, which represent an entry barrier and prevent citizens from purchasing and withholding permits. Based on theoretical findings, we demonstrate that implementing citizens’ participation in emissions trading is an economically efficient and a morally preferable option.

Due to the increasing number of information campaigns about the causes, current impacts and future risks of climate change, the percentage of natural and artificial persons with a real energy and environmental awareness has strongly increased over the last few years. Due to personal and economic issues, more and more people are learning about and adopting good environmental behaviors. Amongst these people, some are convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that they are already doing their maximum for reducing their impact on the environment. These people may wish to do more for the planet and are willing to pay for this purpose. As a result, today, a real demand for pollution control can be identified and the major priority is to satisfy it in a cost-efficient manner. Although various solutions already exist, they are unsatisfactory from an efficiency and ethical point of view. The purpose of this paper is to describe a cost-efficient solution for satisfying the pollution control demand from natural and artificial persons, who are willing to pay for reducing the overall level of greenhouse gas emissions. This solution may be summarized as a pollution control service provided by the government or a non-governmental organization (NGO) consisting in buying and then withholding CO2 emission quotas. In other words, we propose to facilitate the access of pollution victims to CO2 emissions trading. This type of system firstly involves gathering purchase demands for a small amount of emission permits, then trading by bilateral agreement or on a carbon exchange, and finally withholding these permits from the market. Before describing this solution, we will present and criticize the recent carbon-offset programs, which have emerged over the last few months from an economic point of view. This description will facilitate the understanding of our alternative solution and its advantages.

In a context where citizens’ environmental demand is increasing, this note underlines two important ideas. Firstly, there is a need for regularly assessing carbon- offsetting initiatives (benchmarks) in order to increase competition in this sector and enhance control procedures by public authorities to protect consumers from bad practices. Secondly, organizing the purchase and with- holding of greenhouse gas emission permits is a more efficient solution from an economical and environmental point of view compared with carbon-offsetting programs. This solution is also more transparent and should therefore be implemented rapidly. Lastly, it should be noted that this approach can be adapted to other quota-trading markets. Among these markets, purchasing and retiring quotas may seem inter- esting in the case of a green certificate trading system as it offers the possibility for citizens to modify the energy mix regarding electricity production. In the countries that have decided to implement green certificate trading (Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc.) rather than a feed-in tariff (France, Germany, etc.), purchasing and withholding green certificates is a predominating solution for consumers who want more green electricity rather than signing a contract for the supply of green electricity. The additional premium is paid for purchasing green electricity is only acceptable if the supplier guarantees that the green certificates, which have been obtained, are not sold on the market. If the additional premium is not sufficient for retiring green certificates from the market, then the captive customer will pay more for a level of green electricity production, which will be reached whatever the outcome as it has been determined by the Regulator.