Flexible and scalable – can be applied at a national,
regional or global level

Every government in the EU would like to cut its greenhouse emissions but lacks an electorally attractive way to do so. Cap and Share meets that need. It could be introduced by the government of a single country and then extended by bringing neighbouring countries into a common system.

It could be adopted by all 27 countries of the EU and the resulting system presented as a prototype for adoption by the whole world, especially for the next international agreement after the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012.

Britain and Ireland could easily adopt the system together because the two countries together would have no land borders where 'leakage' could take place. We working to bring this about.

We are also working at EU level to get the EU Emissions Trading System replaced by Cap and Share.

Crucially, it empowers individual citizens with rights and a stake in protecting the climate. C&S has a positive psychology. First it ensures peoples' right to their equal share of the "sky commons" and the emissions "scarcity rent" that the fossil fuel companies will have to pay to sell their fuels. In return it requires people to take responsibility and support a deckling cap on GHGs. As some 70% of people will benefit from a rising price of permits to emit carbon and other GHGs, they will have an interest in supporting deep cuts in emissions.