Using personal carbon trading to reduce mobility emissions: A pilot in the Finnish city of Lahti

Uusitalo, Ville; Huttunen, Anna; Kareinen, Elisa; Wright, Tuuli von; Valjakka, M.; Pitkänen, Atte; Levänen, Jarkko

doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2022.07.022

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The price of carbon was increased over the course of the pilot and expressed as €/kg CO 2 rather than discrete tradable permits, and carbon was not traded between users, but as mentioned, allowances could be traded in for rewards. In the reported results of the project, 21% of participants admitted to 'cheating' the system in various ways to earn more reward euros to trade for rewards [64]. This demonstrates that even in a voluntary and free system, individuals will seek to gain from it.…”

Section: Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal Carbon Budgets: A Pestle Review

2022

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Personal Carbon Budgets (PCBs) are a radical policy innovation that seek to reduce an individual’s carbon consumption. This review identifies three archetypes of PCBs in the current literature; Personal Carbon Trading, Carbon Tax and Carbon Labelling. We theorised that carbon trading could affect equity and allow quality of life and consumption to be driven by income rather than needs. We, therefore, developed a new model (Personal Carbon Allowance with no trading) to compare to existing archetypes. A PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) framework was applied to each archetype to analyse and compare their costs and benefits and to critically evaluate and identify which model may be the most appropriate to reduce emissions severely but equitably. We conclude that the only model that can achieve this is our proposed Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) model with no trading. PCA has a hard cap on emissions allowing for controllable severe cuts to emissions, and the lack of trading would prohibit those with wealth from continuing high-consumption lifestyles at the expense of those with lower incomes.

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Section: Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal Carbon Budgets: A Pestle Review

2022

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“…bus) runs on electric or renewable biodiesel (Green Lahti 2022). In addition, Lahti has engaged residents towards a more sustainable lifestyle, for example, by conducting an experiment on personal carbon trading on mobility (Kuokkanen et al 2020;Uusitalo et al 2022).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

How do actions to decarbonise the energy and mobility sectors affect consumption-based carbon footprints? A case of historic and predicted actions in a suburb in Finland

Halonen

Kareinen²,

Uusitalo³

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Commun.

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Household consumption accounts for 72% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To obtain consumption-based emissions in accordance with the 1.5-degree target, the carbon footprint of individuals should be reduced to 2.5 t CO2e a-1 by 2030, which means at least a 70% reduction in high-emitting countries. The decrease in consumption-based GHG emissions can be achieved through both technological and behavioural changes. Currently, climate measures are largely dependent on technological efficiency, although behavioural changes are also needed. In this paper, we study how technological actions to decarbonise the energy and mobility sectors affect consumption-based carbon footprints in the years 2010–2030 in a suburb in Finland. Based on the results, emissions from the mobility sector decreased by 50%, and those from the energy sector decreased by 68% in 2010–2030, when only technology development and society-level actions are considered. These emission reductions affected the carbon footprint of an average Finnish suburb by decreasing it by 37%. This study demonstrates that technological actions to decarbonise the energy and mobility sectors do not guarantee adequate emission reduction by 2030 to achieve the 1.5-degree target; therefore, a change in lifestyle and consumption habits is also needed. Further research should take behavioural changes into account when assessing the development of a consumption-based carbon footprint.

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