To translate the reduction of 40% by 2030 and more than 80% by 2050, it would be necessary to reduce the annual quota of each one to 10t in 2022, 9t in 2024, 8t in 2026, 7t in 2028, and 6t in 2030 There is even talk of 1.5t / year in 2050… Each person's account would be managed and supervised by a national body that we would call the Carbon Agency. Depending on how quickly we start, the annual reduction could be 6%, or 7 or even 8% if we wait.

Taxes have been showed to be ineffective in reducing overconsumption, for example the water tax introduced in India due to scarcity, leads to the paradox that the golf courses can afford to water profusely while the suburbs do not can afford water to drink. The tax encourages the bouncing effect, well described by economists, also known as the Jevons Paradox. Some economists, to obtain a "price signal", still recommend taxation, which would be even more a right to pollute than our proposal for quotas.

Imagine ... after a few years the system has become commonplace, we automatically become sober, and we think more of having fun, dancing, singing, loving ... than of the collapse (that we will have avoided thanks to the enlargement effect towards Europe and then the world). Beforehand, it seems to us that we have had to go through the referendum with all the citizens, for that we will need the pedagogy of all the volunteers ...

It will be up to the holders of the Carbon Account to think about imputing the carbon of the administrations to the citizens, either according to the tax scale, or equally among all citizens, or according to custom. The first years can be tests. If it were decided, for simplicity, that government spending was exempt from the carbon account (yes that would be a bad example) then fewer carbon points would have to be allocated to citizens. But it will be necessary to encourage the State to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions ... ADEME estimates that 1500 kg CO2 / French / year the burden of State administrations and services. The display of the carbon of the administrations, for example on the monthly statement of each individual account, will go in the direction of reduction by emulation between services. An example of a statement on https://comptecarbone.cc/c-comment

They will probably be managed on the parents' account. The question will arise for the bearers of the mechanism to decide if we grant the same 10,000 points to children (at the risk of encouraging too much birth rate), or if a half-fare will be enough to cover their emissions, all in all reduced, like that is the case for tax shares.

No more intrusive than tracking your purchases by your banks who know everything about you! And of course it is subject to the GRDP (general regulations for data protection): only YOU will have the right to check your account, you will use this account to anticipate, evaluate your projects, control… and the carbon agency in charge of regulating our emissions would have the same duty of confidentiality as the tax service or health insurance.
Many questions of principle end up in comparison with the points-based driver's licence which seemed unfair, but was admitted for superior security reasons. Climate chaos demands even more prevention.

aha, nice joke, yes it will be real production of... clean gas!

After a few months if there was only one tonne left in your account, you receive the message to restrict yourself and buy a few tonnes from regional exchange system.
Effect for low wages for example: a family of 5 who has 50,000 points in 2023 and consumes 30,000 could sell 20,000 at 10ct (if € 100 / t of CO2 equivalent) to produce a sobriety premium of € 2,000 on the year. If it goes to 200 € per ton, it's 4000 € ...

Rather not, but this is not punitive: rich people that are too energy-consuming will be able to buy back carbon points. People at the minimum wage are sober (average at 6t/p/year, see our "studies"), often because they have to. They will be able to resell carbon points. Their value will increase with scarcity. And from year to year, it is more and more rare, since they are asked to reduce their consumption by 40% in 10 years. So it's getting harder and harder for the rich!

Buying back carbon points does not bring in any tax, governments have to maintain or even increase taxes on capital and high incomes.

For low-income earners who have travel obligations, for example 100km/day up to 30,000km/year with an old car consuming 10l of diesel per cent, this generates 9480kg of CO2, less than five Paris-New-York trips for the rich. And if you have to buy it as a surplus at €100 per tonne, that's €80 per month. Not expensive enough to justify a change of car, though...

It is the suppliers who are automatically accountable for the carbon flow, avoiding cheating. And everyone will choose the most sober suppliers to be less imputed by their supply. Companies receive carbon points from their customers to be able to buy from their suppliers.

If the companies import raw materials or all purchases, they must pay carbon points to the National Carbon Agency which has defined a scale with French ADEME or Climate Authority... This scale will disappear when all the countries will have their own National Carbon Agency allowing exchanges validated by more than one.

If you have forced mobility with an old car that is too greedy, the carbon agency could give you a temporary quota, to be decided by the holders of the plan.

One of the criticisms made during the English experiments was the risk that the poorest people would immediately sell their quotas and then run out at the end of the year. One of the answers is that the regional carbon exchange only pays out the money for the allowances traded at the end of the year. Or that each family is forced to keep a minimum amount to survive. Or that the payment is made monthly.

10 liters of gasoline or diesel represents the emission of 30kg of CO2e, or 30 points, a 400km train ticket 3 points, an assortment of 4 beefsteaks and 8 local meat sausages at 23 points, a telephone Korean at 30 points including 10 transport, Californian jeans at 23 points ... and for the internet: 130 points per terabyte or approx. 500h of video (the hour of youtube or netflix at 0.3 point, it scrolls quickly!)

"I drive 10,000 km/year on the motorway by obligation, what can I do?"
Reduce and lighten... with a 3t car at 130 km/h you reach 3700 points, if you reduce to 110 you will take 20 minutes more between Nantes and Paris but will only charge 2900 points. And if you opt for a one ton car (Clio or Polo with 6l/100km for example) you would reach 1700 points for these 10 000 km at 110 km/h.

In this case, charging to the carbon account would no longer be possible and the merchant would not be able to cash in his carbon points. Perhaps (in the first year) carbon cards would be distributed to accompany the cash payments. Payments of less than ten euros could be accepted in cash to keep the small coffee, newspaper or small market flowing. Local currencies are encouraged to integrate electronic use by card and smartphone, which many are already doing.
The viral pandemic of 2020 reveals that 0.5 million people in France receive their allowances and public aid in cash: it will be necessary to issue nominative carbon cards for them. It also appears that payment by contactless card has supplanted cash for health reasons.
And you can pay by money and use the card for carbon points.

probably, as we know that VAT (which has nothing to do with the present cycle) started in France in 1967 and was rapidly generalised throughout the world. Why Europe to start? we are ahead with low carbon electricity and efforts of many citizens sober, starting now gives us softness compared to the last to reach 2t in 2050, we pity the Australians who are currently at 18t and are beginning to understand, with 107 000 km2 (large as Belgium) burned this year .

Carbon self-restrictions also lead to the non-purchase of unnecessary products and generate serious savings in the most sober households, leaving room for cultural, historical, gastronomic, etc. growth.

Rather not, but that is debatable ... the downside of making the company bear it is that remote workers risk being pushed aside in favour of local workers. Cities like La Rochelle are rethinking their urban planning to bring housing closer to work and leisure to aim for carbon neutrality.

Naturally, some of the ingredients are imported. Some people want to impose a carbon tax at Europe's borders, but that seems impossible under the rules of the WTO, which has the dogma of free trade. Not requiring a new international treaty is an important advantage of the carbon account, which is detailed in Pierre Calame's text:
The difference between a tax and a norm is essential here. The obligation to declare the carbon content of an imported good does not increase its value.
The deduction of carbon points corresponding to this content, only has the effect of levelling the playing field between domestic and foreign suppliers, which is the basis for the inter-national free trade agreements. If it were a tax, the system would not be compatible with current WTO rules and would therefore require international negotiation (of uncertain duration and outcome, perhaps 5 years). On the contrary, the standard for displaying carbon content is WTO compatible.

If you exchange it for cash without a carbon footprint, you are giving the residual carbon content as a gift to your buyer. For the old wardrobe, this seems normal, but for your used car, you have spread its 8 t carbon over several years, the buyer must compensate you for your residual, since he avoids the carbon content of a new purchase.

The Carbon Account could make many professions obsolete... and favour the care professions.

Local institutions and communities will be pushed to create jobs in services. However, these jobs have an increased carbon content in sparsely populated areas. Adjustments will have to be made in favour of fragile employment areas, as is already the case with allocations to municipalities and departments.

A responsible government must commit to strengthening these budgetary allocations.

"As a small farmer (8 hectares, vegetables, fruit, meadow for the donkey) I am on the "solidarity contributor" scheme and taxed at a flat rate of 16% (+ social taxes) of my turnover. How is my carbon account calculated?"
You are considered as self-employed without a company structure but with simplified accounting. Your farm consumes carbon (from your payments) and exports it through its sales (which recharges its carbon account) and its absorption by plants and soils (gain of 0.5t/year/ha). If you use few petroleum products or transport, your farm is carbon neutral, your carbon account should be in surplus. It is the regional carbon exchange that would attribute to you what your land has absorbed in carbon.

By the way, we note the important capacity of agroecology (or bio): 40% of the greenhouse gases of agriculture comes (in the form of nitrous oxide) from nitrogenous fertilizers, which organic farmers have been able to avoid and replace by specific plants. Tomorrow, all industrial agriculture could become organic.

The Carbon Agency would ask him the same effort as all people, he only receives points to compensate for what he does not sell (in France) to balance his carbon account which (otherwise) would be too negative. He cannot do abuse or embezzlement, nor waste the energy calculated on the average of the winegrowers. The Agency could implement permanent improvement mechanisms such as a bonus conditional on annual reductions

This is a trend (paying by card, especially since the "contactless" method) that is even becoming widespread in Senior Homes; For the carbon account, precise tracking would be done by card transactions, without cash or checks. It is even encouraged to resist epidemics.

It is rather the merchant who will require payment by card to be credited with the carbon points of what he sells you. For payments by cheque, you have to connect the carbon accounts of the payer and the payee on the regional carbon exchange, just as you do when you sell second-hand goods in cash.

He is exposed to the same penalties as VAT fraudsters. They are revealed by the bank transaction (difficult to pay in cash) and postal delivery.

For foreign visitors, the fixed carbon exchange price would be set annually by the Carbon Agency (high enough so that the rich people are not tempted to buy them on the sly, and low enough not to deter tourism, let's say 200 euros per tonne to start), for their week, they would pay 100 € for 500 points which feed their "visitor carbon account", they will consume 100 or 200 points and leave with two cases of Roussette and Chignin-Bergeron, the famous local white wines. When they leave, they can connect to their visitor carbon account, and get the 25 points of the (exported) wine refunded, and the 300 points not consumed. Or save their points for the next visit as everyone does for the Swiss motorway. The visitor carbon card would be the only need to make plastic cards, but the smartest people could charge their Visa card or other.

For our Canadian couple, the majoration of the week is 40€, it seems acceptable.

If there are very controlled and supervised procedures, it is those of the banks! in the case of a couple with two children who would be entitled to 30,000 points for the year, the children do not have a bank account, the couple has a joint account in a first bank and each a separate account in two others banks, they should distribute the points on these accounts and readjust during the year, the tax focus would be taken into account.

Some payments pass through California, like Paypal ... which accepts all national conventions, here they would comply with the transport of the mandatory info about carbon points.

Today there is an abuse of prescription of unnecessary drugs, which patients accept because they do not pay. Could the carbon account prevent this mismanagement which funds multinational companies?

Even if the medication is paid for by Health Insurance, it does have a carbon content which would be charged to the patient's account; the patient is empowered on his carbon account and monitors that doctors do not prescribe more than necessary. The French "vitale" card (or similar) would then replace the bank card to transfer the carbon points to the carbon agency.

This is of course to be discussed by the carriers of the Carbon Account and bring specific quotas to the ultra-medicalized patients.

"Could a sober household store their points for the following years, when the allocation will be reduced?"

It is to be decided by the future carriers of the process, but it seems to us that the counters must be reset to zero every January 1st, to avoid that there is an effect of future upsurge.
But how to reward those who will have been more sober than the average and will have their account set to zero at the end of the year? it's to process holders to decide if above 2000 points, they deserve a year-end gift ...

The Carbon Agency will have a lot to do! For example granting temporary quotas to poor families forced to work far away with an old oversized car.
The over-indebtedness commission will be able to unblock the end of difficult years, to alleviate accidents in life.
For an investment, the carbon amount can be amortized over several years according to a carbon reduction plan. For a new apartment, for example, carbon data are available, at an average level of 1 t / m2 for its lifespan of 50 years. If the Carbon Agency defines a declining balance, we can leave on 3t / year the first year for an average apartment, it is possible to attribute it to a possible tenant.
For an existing building, the calculation is more difficult and the Carbon Agency may have to define scales so as not to destabilize the market. When selling his apartment, the seller would not receive carbon points that he did not spend, but the buyer would have to pay a lump sum of points to the Carbon Agency to keep a certain balance with the new. However, it may favor renovation works in the old one to limit the extension of subdivisions of new pavilions which artificialise living soils that are very useful for carbon.

YES she will have to think about not using the plane or the highway too much, but it is she who will organize it (a return trip to Athens is 2.2 t from Nantes, 2200 points). She could also experiment with carpooling, colocation, in any case not deprive herself! But count at the same time in euros and carbon points, and stimulate her neurons.

Traveling the world is also a way of spreading peace, pacifying the world, yes you have to travel! But is the speed of the air an advantage? see the impact of Greta Thunberg's slow moves!

No, the current credit cards are electronic and have room to carry carbon information.

For the Carbon Account they have to dedicate a card track, it's a question of programming, which will create a few hundred jobs.

It will not work if the Carbon Agency does not have a foolproof governance…

It will effectively require a governance committee including users (individuals, businesses, traders, administrations) in addition to public power; each region will also manage the local variations of the rules put in place.

Governance experts will be called upon to guarantee the robustness of the Carbon Agency and its regional offices.

See also https://www.comptecarbone.org/en-gb/plus-loin#agence-carbone

" I am retired and rather wealthy (among the top-20 fortunes in France, it seems), I am embarrassed to emit a lot of co2 (47t / year), it is because I have to manage in several countries, how to balance my carbon account?"

You will have to try to limit the highly emitting activities, buy carbon points in the regional carbon antenna, and perhaps secure a carbon rent by planting 100 hectares of wild forest (a carbon sink) which would bring a rent of 50 t co2 / year.

The Carbon agency must take care to avoid capital flight to countries not subject to the Carbon Account, up to it to offer attractive investments, validated in their climate effect. It will be easy to calculate how the profitability of investments in renewable energies, in the renewal of transport fleets, in heritage renovation, will be improved by the planned depletion of carbon points. The Agency may also offer public-private partnerships to support the decarbonization of the administration.

"If billionaires start planting trees everywhere, will the price of agricultural land become unaffordable for young farmers?"
This is a point of vigilance that governments will have to keep, there are SAFERs in France to preserve the agricultural use of the land. Under the effect of the carbon plan, it is likely that industrial farming will be reduced, freeing up land used now for corn or even wheat. Agriculture will once again become the climate regulator, allowing all volunteers to settle down, stop desertification and progressing from 500,000 farmers currently in France to perhaps 700,000. If there is no forest space, billionaires could be encouraged to pay hedges to farmers, knowing that one to two kilometers of hedges are worth one hectare of wild forest.

Finally, when the carbon account will no longer be limited to France alone, the creation of wild forests can be done in countries with uncultivated areas (cultivated land is only 12% of land emerged from the world).

To save climate and agriculture, they will be able to approach www.terredeliens.org, the French foundation that finances young farmers by making land available. If cheaters bypassed the administration (in France: SAFER) to divert agricultural land (sale of company shares as is already done too much), the Carbon Agency could refuse the status of carbon sink to the land thus invested.

Oh sorry, on the contrary we want to leave all leeway to the future project leaders, if too much detail is in our enthusiasm to show the feasibility!

The accounting of each company will integrate the carbon points on everything that enters and leaves, good management will be to balance the entries and exits as companies know how to do. Probably every business should have a carbon accountant. If a company goes into carbon bankruptcy (too many entries and not enough exits, to the point of no longer being able to obtain supplies) it is because it will have wanted to give away its carbon points! It will be put in recovery to balance, within a given period. If she persisted, she would be stopped by her inability to get supplies. Bankruptcy...

Let's just say they will disappear on their own... because prohibition always provokes a reaction.

Radiant heaters will gradually be dismantled, because these cafés will have to charge carbon points that will double the impact on consumers, who will naturally choose sober terraces, possibly with small jackets.

The question of the congestion of public space (by terraces privatizing sidewalks) will be put to local elected officials.

"Does the carbon account not lead us to a profound change in our values (money or otherwise), in our mutual responsibilities, in our ties to society?"
It is true that, in addition to protecting our climate, the carbon account leads us into virtuous behaviors which question responsibilities as they have evolved with individualism and unlimited irresponsibility.

If a leader cheats on money, it is reprehensible but he is not often put in prison. If he cheats on this common which is climate balance, he physically harms humanity, which leads him to prison.

"I need financial aid to insulate my house and improve the performance of my car, what can I do?"

With the carbon account and the planned reduction of the ceilings, your banker would quickly see the profitability, you would sell the carbon points earned to repay the loan.

Funding will obviously be facilitated.

"In France (in modern cities), I deposit my waste with a digital card that counts my volume. Would the carbon account be charged by the number of bins?"

Yes, it's easy for those of you who are ahead of the game; for cities with free drop-off, families pay for the service (by flat rate) out of their local taxes: the carbon points would be deducted proportionally... until something better comes along.

"A bus driver has just scolded me because I crossed the pedestrian zebra without warning and he had to brake, he tells me that his Carbon Account is impacted!"
Yes in this fiction, he is right to reproach you (with courtesy), because he is accountable for his driving quality with regard to CO2 emissions, all professionals understand their interest in reducing greenhouse gases.

No. This is an unbreakable rule! The calculation of 700 million tonnes cannot be distorted by 67 million French people. Any distribution is naturally blocked by the Carbon Agency (cancelled carbon donation). The national regulation will also have to protect weak people (can I cheat my aunt at the Ehpad?), it will be necessary to extend the control of points to the guardianship mechanism (where the guardians already control that there is no abuse of money on weak people).

It is conceivable that people under guardianship would be regulated out of quota with a simple monitoring and provision of points for current expenses. A fraudster could also be put under guardianship by the judge.

Giving carbon points to its managers would penalise the company twice over by worsening its carbon content, making its products unmarketable, but would also put it under the law for abuse of corporate assets.

"Could cheaters blow up the Carbon Plan?"

Unfortunately, yes, it usually takes 4-5 years before fraud appears in robust systems (as it did for the CAP, VAT, EU-ETS etc.), the Carbon Agency will have to be very robust. In EU, we are protected by a Direction from European Commission called OLAF as Anti-Fraud.

At worst, if the plan were to be abandoned after 5 years, the european people will have learned to observe the carbon content of their consumption and activities, other countries or continents will have improved the process in robustness and after possible local abandonment, the carbon plan will come back under the pressure of global warming.

There is still an active debate between cremation and burial, which emits more? Today, humusation could be a better response to our concerns about our climate footprint, and it is indeed a question of footprint for what I will leave to the earth... (it is not yet authorised in France).
In the meantime, we should multiply the number of communal natural cemeteries like this first one in Niort: bit.ly/cimetiere-naturel

https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/une-inhumation-est-en-moyenne-trois-fois-plus-polluante-quune-cremation

https://www.humusation.org/
Note that as for the euros, this can be left to the rightful owners.

Talking about the Carbon Account is understandable, but we are also talking about carbon cards, quotas, ration coupons?

It is the principle that is important, all the names are the same, we avoid talking about rationing in France whereas in Great Britain rationing, during the Second World War, gave everyone good health, so it has a positive connotation that it does not have in France.

The term carbon card, very well described by Mathilde Szuba in her thesis (http://www.theses.fr/2014PA010540) and her conference, suffers from the failure of experiments conducted on too small territories as in England or Sweden: https://www.institutmomentum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Quotas-individuels-de-carbone.pdf. Mathilde Szuba expresses very well the advantage of rationing in the interview at the Zoein Foundation: https://soundcloud.com/fondation-zoein/lacartecarbone

We sometimes talk about quotas, but with caution, because the term has taken on a negative connotation since European Commission officials wanted to impose immigration quotas when, without this word, each country was more responsible; conversely, it is through fishing quotas that the European Union is saving what is left of fish, and that is a positive thing.

Quite the contrary, it would be the only law that would make it possible to bankrupt a company that is reckless with regard to its environmental responsibilities. It would also bring some social justice by allowing the most sober (and often the poorest) households to monetize their surplus carbon points, at ever-increasing rates, given the growing scarcity. Finally, it makes all economic actors responsible, be they government administrations and services, multinationals, merchants, craftsmen, farmers or citizens.