[Although it is recognized by economists that carbon taxes are probably the best approach in terms of providing the right incentives to get consumers to reduce their carbon footprint, they are almost an impossible political sell in North America.
However, some experts have argued that instead of carbon taxes we need carbon rewards or credits. Carbon rewards or credits work the same way as taxes in that you pay a surcharge on carbon emitting products such as gasoline, etc. But rather than having the money fall into the hands of government the money flows back directly into the hands of consumers in terms of credits. Consumers can use these credits to purchase “virtualized” zero carbon products and services. This is where broadband networks can play a critical role, as virtualized products can only be delivered over true broadband networks. In fact I argue the networks themselves should be paid for through carbon credits as in our proposed free fiber to the home business model (http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/)
Ron Dembo of ZeroFootPrint has written a great paper on the concept of carbon credits which was recently covered in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080908.RREGULY08/TPStory/Business/
To read the entire paper please see http://www.zerofootprint.net/pdf/zerofootprint-green-credits.pdf
The ZeroFootPrint web site also has excellent articles explaining the intricacies of carbon offsets and developing a detailed carbon accounting plan in line with ISO 14064 and related standards – BSA]
This blog is about using ICTs to develop climate change preparedness solutions built around Energy Internet and autonomous eVehicles
Energy Internet and eVehicles Overview
Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to prepare society for inevitable climate change. To date most people have been focused on how to reduce Green House Gas emissions, but now there is growing recognition that regardless of what we do to mitigate against climate change the planet is going to be significantly warmer in the coming years with all the attendant problems of more frequent droughts, flooding, sever storms, etc. As such we need to invest in solutions that provide a more robust and resilient infrastructure to withstand this environmental onslaught especially for our electrical and telecommunications systems and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint.
Using autonomous eVehicles for Renewable Energy Transportation and Distribution: http://goo.gl/bXO6x and http://goo.gl/UDz37
Free High Speed Internet to the Home or School Integrated with solar roof top: http://goo.gl/wGjVG
High level architecture of Internet Networks to survive Climate Change: https://goo.gl/24SiUP
Architecture and routing protocols for Energy Internet: http://goo.gl/niWy1g
How to use Green Bond Funds to underwrite costs of new network and energy infrastructure: https://goo.gl/74Bptd