Attitudes to personal carbon allowances: Political trust, fairness and ideology

The idea of personal carbon allowances (PCAs) was presented by the UK Environment Secretary, David Miliband, in 2006. Although no nation state is seriously developing proposals for them, they have been discussed within academia, NGOs and policy-making circles. PCAs can be seen as a logical extension of emissions trading schemes, which has so far only applied at the firm level, to individuals. The purpose of this article is to analyse some critical aspects of the public's support for a PCA scheme. In particular, the focus is on the relationship between people's attitudes to a PCA scheme and their trust in politicians, its perceived fairness, and its underlying ideology, respectively. The relationship between people's attitudes towards an increase in the current carbon tax rate and their attitudes towards an implementation of a PCA scheme is analysed. The study is based on a mail questionnaire sent out to a random, representative sample in Sweden.