Personal Carbon Budgets and the Green Party

I referred a few days ago to the aspirant Green Party Leader who drives a gas guzzling Jaguar, as interviewed in The Independent. 

I found her reply on the specific point very disappointing.  She makes a comparison with electric cars and argues that they are expensive to buy, do not have an adequate infrastructure and may rely on electricity from coal fired power stations anyway.  All reasonable points, but not an explanation as to why she does not drive a more fuel efficient (perhaps even a hybrid) car.  A more fuel efficient vehicle would allow her to produce fewer carbon emissions but still travel in a way that lots of other people find perfectly acceptable.

What would be more interesting would be a wider look at the implications of this kind of thing.  A traditional environmentalist view is that all emissions should be kept to the absolue minimum, but it is in my view reasonable (and certainly practically inevitable) that people will take into account things like cost and convenience.

From time to time, people have flirted with the idea of a personal carbon budget.  You get a certain accepted level of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, and create a budget around that.  So for example, you might offset having a fuel inefficent car with limited air travel, or better insulation, or vegetarian eating habits for example.  In a free society, it is certainly worth thinking about an option like this since it would allow individuals to preserve freedom over how they run their lives whilst nonetheless tackling climate change.