UNFCCC’s climate neutral project: An attempt to make climate change an individual responsibility, How effective can this be?
When I first saw the twitter video message, in which Christiana Figueres , UNFCCC invited global citizens to be climate neutral, letting people offset unavoidable emissions by proportionately funding carbon neutralising projects is a great idea. I instantly felt it. I still think it is and have a great respect for all the efforts from UNFCCC and her.
But here are my qualms,
All the efforts that are taken to make ‘fight climate change’ as an individual responsibility should target wider citizens in a more inclusive, pragmatic and accelerated pace.
The big questions — will everyone be willing to spend money to offset their emissions ?, can everyone afford to pay to offset their emissions.?
1. Is it a practical solution asking people to pay to offset their emissions? May not be, because the climate neutral plea was intended to all the global citizens, but unfortunately it appealed only to a select few. I did a survey walking around asking a few people. People genuinely felt behooved by this but they mistook it almost as a charity request (no literally, psychologically). Nonetheless, they may even buy climate credits to sponsor a carbon neutralising project but if you ask me how much the whole Individual responsibility thing has gone into people’s head ?
Not much !. People are thinking they are doing a favour to someone else. We should make people to feel responsible and show empathy in that order.
2. Why can’t we flip the equation and let the people be incentivised instead of asking them to pay ?
Now before judging me — the incentives can be tangible and/or intangible. (need not be cash). There are two schools of thoughts here 1. Penalising offenders monetarily (like levying a green tax) 2. Incentivising do-gooders.
I am a big fan of the concept of ‘libertarian paternalism’ and ‘nudging’ as advocated by behavioural economics guru Richard Thaler in his books “Nudge” and “Misbehaving”. Yes, it is possible if governments seriously consider nudging people. I mean compelling nudges. I am qualifying the nudges with modifier “compelling” because we need to make nudges that are very attractive and hard to ignore.
If feedbacks and Incentives are aligned properly, people will respond positively ( “Nudge”). This is very true in the case of individuals.
4. Incentives: Creating a green identity for individuals
Idea is to have a very simple green identity program similar to the credit score and make it a central element of an Individual’s life. Almost every one has a fair understanding of how maintaining a healthy one affects your life. Best part is governments won’t penalise you for not having a good green identity but you will miss out on some hard-to-ignore incentives. This can come across as a very abstract definition but it can tailored to the needs of different countries.
So how does green identity work ?
Green identity is nothing but points you can accrue for reducing your carbon foot print. It will be a collaborative effort between Governments, climate change advocating councils and well meaning companies to participate in this program and give away points.
Now, what actions will reduce carbon, how much carbon entails how many points is not something an individual has to worry about. How and at what rate you will earn and the range of incentives you will be entitled for your identity will all be preset.
Green Identity is only valid for a year and adaptive. One year : so you don’t do well in 2016 and be a worst climate offender for the rest of your life with a good green identity. Adaptive: so if a lot of people are doing well you have to do even well to score more !
I am sure governments will have enough in the ‘climate change fund’ or stimulus package to apportion for the incentives.
Here is how points addition / deduction may work
- For instance, deducting points every time when you pass the immigration in airports is under the government control. (The points will vary based on miles of fly)
- Every time you observe Earth hour rewarding points based on the size of your utility is probably the responsibility of “earthhour.org”(We need some change to the existing app)
- Based on your power consumption and what slab that your consumption style falls onto you get points rewarded or deducted this is probably the responsibility of the power company.
- People who own a Electric vehicle or Minimalists who don’t own a car can walk into DMV provide proofs and get points commensurate to that.
- You earn points for every single ride on a public transport.
- You earn points for sharing ride using a Uber Pool for instance.
Like I said It will be a collaborative effort between Governments, climate change advocating councils and well meaning companies to participate in this program and give away points.
5. Feedbacks: How green identity improves awareness and ‘gamifies’ fighting climate change
Green identity has slabs identified by colour codes. It ranges between red, amber and green with green being the best. The green identity shall be tied to the national identification number of a country like SSN and can be checked via a companion mobile app. A crazy futuristic idea is to give out wrist wearables which shows your identity slab and can automatically turn from red to amber based on your identity. (For the curious ones the wrist band is passive NFC and your mobile app can be tapped on to update the colour).
(The wrist wearable was my original idea although later I learned John Tierney of new york times already suggested a gadget but not similar and called it iPed ).
The wearable not only makes green identity a social status (which is awesome) it also acts as feedback mechanism as how good or bad an individual is doing for fighting climate change.
How the incentives may work ?
while one simple idea can be to tie-up with Energy efficient product making companies ranging from energy efficient light bulbs to solar panels and let people redeem their points for products.
I learned from Rory sutherland that we can solve social problems ‘psychologically’. I have a few ideas but I am leaving this for now to the world to figure out.
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