Personal carbon trading in different national contexts

Although personal carbon trading (PCT) is envisaged as a policy which could work in many developed countries, most research work has been undertaken in a UK context. Could the significant national variation in energy infrastructure, policy and patterns of personal carbon emissions diminish the viability and effectiveness of PCT outside the UK? This preliminary work has identified important national and regional variations in the EU and USA, gathered together relevant data, and identified additional challenges for PCT not hitherto recognised within UK-focussed research. A research agenda for internationalising PCT research is proposed, which details the data, methodological development and future debates needed. Consideration of the appropriate geographic scale for implementing PCT suggests national rather than EU-level implementation within Europe, although sub-national, state-based implementation may be relevant in the USA. While close attention must be paid to the interaction of PCT and individual national contexts, and detailed design of the policy is likely to vary between nations, the evidence suggests PCT could be of relevance for many countries, not just the UK.This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the Climate Policy 2010 10(4) © 2010 Earthscan, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.3763/cpol.2009.003