One day, your wallet might hold not just your credit, debit and department store loyalty cards. It might also hold a carbon card. One day, you might be worrying not just about how much money is in your bank account, but also how much is in your carbon account.
Every time you fill up at a petrol station, every time you pay your electricity bill, you will be grumbling not just about the price of fuel or power, but about the price of carbon.
In this future world carbon will be the currency you need to pay for your contribution to greenhouse gas pollution.
You will be allotted a "free" amount of carbon to spend on electricity, petrol or air travel. If you exceed your account you will have to buy carbon from someone else or go without.
Radical though it might sound, it is a concept being taken seriously in Britain by both the Labour Government and the Tory Opposition as they try to outbid each other in the climate change stakes.
The British Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband - tipped by some to be the country's next prime minister - wants to test a scheme under which all British citizens would be issued an identical annual carbon allowance, stored as points on an electronic card. Points would be deducted at the point of sale for every purchase of non-renewable energy, according to reports in the British media.
If holders do not use their full carbon allotment - say, because they used public transport instead of a car or took domestic holidays instead of flying overseas - they would be able to sell their leftover points.
The idea of individuals being held directly responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions is being taken so seriously in Britain that the Conservative Opposition wants to apply it to the airline industry. It has proposed a series of taxes on flights, including a fuel duty.
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