We only picked up last night a sensible rethink in the UK about David Millibrand's adbsurd 2006 idea to have personal carbon footprint monitoring. Even the Guardian reports that proceeding with the plan would have subjected the Labour Government to ridicule.
Ministers have scrapped radical plans to test a carbon rationing scheme that would have forced citizens to carry a carbon card to swipe every time they bought petrol or paid an electricity bill.
The plan was announced by David Miliband, former environment secretary, in 2006 as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle global warming. But officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said today that the idea was too expensive and would be unpopular.
Defra said a feasibility study found that carbon rationing was "an idea ahead of its time in terms of its public acceptability and the technology to bring down costs." While there were "no insurmountable technical obstacles", the study found such a scheme would cost £1-2bn each year and would be perceived as unfair.
Defra said it was abandoning plans for a pilot scheme to test the idea, because it would be "unrepresentative" and "could lead to failure and subsequent public distrust and ridicule."
