IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v201y2022ics092180092200249x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distributional fairness of personal carbon trading

Author

Listed:
  • Pitkänen, Atte
  • von Wright, Tuuli
  • Kaseva, Janne
  • Kahiluoto, Helena

Abstract

Distributional fairness concerns are key barriers to the implementation of climate policies. Emission rights allocation is the decisive distributional feature of personal carbon trading (PCT) that is intended to incentivise individuals' low-carbon choices. The aim of the current study was to identify the predictors of the perceived distributional fairness of PCT. The perceived fairness of expected income redistribution through a PCT scheme in mobility was studied by a survey conducted among citizens of a medium-sized North European city, Lahti, Finland (n = 358). The progressive distributional effects of PCT with equal-per-capita allocation were perceived as fair by the majority, while the consequent burdens on rural households and families with children were strongly perceived as unfair. Political orientation and views on climate responsibility were the main fairness predictors for redistribution through PCT. The results imply that an allocation that acknowledges vulnerable groups with higher mobility needs would be considered fairer than an equal-per-capita allocation. An allocation that is sensitive to context-specific distributional fairness concerns appears to be a crucial feature of PCT for public acceptability.

Suggested Citation

  • Pitkänen, Atte & von Wright, Tuuli & Kaseva, Janne & Kahiluoto, Helena, 2022. "Distributional fairness of personal carbon trading," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:201:y:2022:i:c:s092180092200249x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107587
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092200249X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107587?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Maestre-Andrés & Stefan Drews & Jeroen van den Bergh, 2020. "Perceived fairness and public acceptability of carbon pricing: a review of the literature," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(9), pages 1186-1204, July.
    2. Matto Mildenberger & Erick Lachapelle & Kathryn Harrison & Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, 2022. "Limited impacts of carbon tax rebate programmes on public support for carbon pricing," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(2), pages 141-147, February.
    3. Carolyn Fischer & William A. Pizer, 2019. "Horizontal Equity Effects in Energy Regulation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 209-237.
    4. Fremstad, Anders & Paul, Mark, 2019. "The Impact of a Carbon Tax on Inequality," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 88-97.
    5. McNamara, David & Caulfield, Brian, 2013. "Examining the impact of carbon price changes under a personalised carbon trading scheme for transport," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 238-253.
    6. Fredrik Carlsson & Mitesh Kataria & Alan Krupnick & Elina Lampi & Åsa Löfgren & Ping Qin & Susie Chun & Thomas Sterner, 2012. "Paying for Mitigation: A Multiple Country Study," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(2), pages 326-340.
    7. Boyce, James K., 2018. "Carbon Pricing: Effectiveness and Equity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 52-61.
    8. Norleen Ackerman & Beatrice Paolucci, 1983. "Objective and subjective income adequacy: Their relationship to perceived life quality measures," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 25-48, January.
    9. Julie Anne Cronin & Don Fullerton & Steven Sexton, 2019. "Vertical and Horizontal Redistributions from a Carbon Tax and Rebate," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 169-208.
    10. E. Keith Smith & Adam Mayer, 2019. "Anomalous Anglophones? Contours of free market ideology, political polarization, and climate change attitudes in English-speaking countries, Western European and post-Communist states," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 17-34, January.
    11. Sommer, Stephan & Mattauch, Linus & Pahle, Michael, 2022. "Supporting carbon taxes: The role of fairness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    12. Magnus Bergquist & Andreas Nilsson & Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2022. "Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(3), pages 235-240, March.
    13. Dorband, Ira Irina & Jakob, Michael & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Steckel, Jan Christoph, 2019. "Poverty and distributional effects of carbon pricing in low- and middle-income countries – A global comparative analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 246-257.
    14. Wadud, Zia & Chintakayala, Phani Kumar, 2019. "Personal Carbon Trading: Trade-off and Complementarity Between In-home and Transport Related Emissions Reduction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 397-408.
    15. Francesco Fuso Nerini & Tina Fawcett & Yael Parag & Paul Ekins, 2021. "Personal carbon allowances revisited," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1025-1031, December.
    16. Kuokkanen, Anna & Sihvonen, Markus & Uusitalo, Ville & Huttunen, Anna & Ronkainen, Tuuli & Kahiluoto, Helena, 2020. "A proposal for a novel urban mobility policy: Personal carbon trade experiment in Lahti city," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. David Klenert & Linus Mattauch & Emmanuel Combet & Ottmar Edenhofer & Cameron Hepburn & Ryan Rafaty & Nicholas Stern, 2018. "Making carbon pricing work for citizens," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(8), pages 669-677, August.
    18. Emma Ejelöv & Andreas Nilsson, 2020. "Individual Factors Influencing Acceptability for Environmental Policies: A Review and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-14, March.
    19. Tina Fawcett, 2010. "Personal carbon trading in different national contexts," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 339-352, July.
    20. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Publisher Correction: Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 349-349, April.
    21. Starkey, Richard, 2012. "Personal carbon trading: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 7-18.
    22. Rhodes, Ekaterina & Axsen, Jonn & Jaccard, Mark, 2017. "Exploring Citizen Support for Different Types of Climate Policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 56-69.
    23. Grégory Claeys & Gustav Fredriksson & Georg Zachmann, . "The distributional effects of climate policies," Blueprints, Bruegel, number 28291, December.
    24. Bristow, Abigail L. & Wardman, Mark & Zanni, Alberto M. & Chintakayala, Phani K., 2010. "Public acceptability of personal carbon trading and carbon tax," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 1824-1837, July.
    25. Andrea Baranzini & Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh & Stefano Carattini & Richard B. Howarth & Emilio Padilla & Jordi Roca, 2017. "Carbon pricing in climate policy: seven reasons, complementary instruments, and political economy considerations," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), July.
    26. Thomas Douenne, 2020. "The Vertical and Horizontal Distributive Effects of Energy Taxes: A Case Study of a French Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 231-254.
    27. Sverker C. Jagers & Åsa Löfgren & Johannes Stripple, 2010. "Attitudes to personal carbon allowances: political trust, fairness and ideology," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 410-431, July.
    28. Stefan Drews & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2016. "What explains public support for climate policies? A review of empirical and experimental studies," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(7), pages 855-876, October.
    29. Raux, Charles & Marlot, Grégoire, 2005. "A system of tradable CO2 permits applied to fuel consumption by motorists," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 255-265, May.
    30. Lévay, Petra Zsuzsa & Vanhille, Josefine & Goedemé, Tim & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2021. "The association between the carbon footprint and the socio-economic characteristics of Belgian households," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    31. Fahd Mohamed Omar Al-Guthmy & Wanglin Yan, 2020. "Mind the gap: personal carbon trading for road transport in Kenya," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(9), pages 1141-1160, October.
    32. Starkey, Richard, 2012. "Personal carbon trading: A critical survey Part 2: Efficiency and effectiveness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 19-28.
    33. Hammar, Henrik & Jagers, Sverker C., 2007. "What is a fair CO2 tax increase? On fair emission reductions in the transport sector," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 377-387, March.
    34. Burgess, Martin, 2016. "Personal carbon allowances: A revised model to alleviate distributional issues," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 316-327.
    35. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 231-239, March.
    36. Neil Carter, 2014. "The politics of climate change in the UK," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(3), pages 423-433, May.
    37. Christoph Boehringer & Sonja Peterson & Thomas F. Rutherford & Jan Schneider & Malte Winkler, 2021. "Climate Policies after Paris: Pledge, Trade and Recycle Insights from the 36th Energy Modeling Forum Study (EMF36)," Working Papers V-434-21, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised May 2021.
    38. von Wright, Tuuli & Kaseva, Janne & Kahiluoto, Helena, 2022. "Needs must? Fair allocation of personal carbon allowances in mobility," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    39. Martin Burgess & Mark Whitehead, 2020. "Just Transitions , Poverty and Energy Consumption: Personal Carbon Accounts and Households in Poverty," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-24, November.
    40. Adeline Otto & Dimitri Gugushvili, 2020. "Eco-Social Divides in Europe: Public Attitudes towards Welfare and Climate Change Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, January.
    41. Wadud, Zia, 2011. "Personal tradable carbon permits for road transport: Why, why not and who wins?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1052-1065.
    42. Brand, Christian & Goodman, Anna & Rutter, Harry & Song, Yena & Ogilvie, David, 2013. "Associations of individual, household and environmental characteristics with carbon dioxide emissions from motorised passenger travel," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 158-169.
    43. Olga Alcaraz & Pablo Buenestado & Beatriz Escribano & Bàrbara Sureda & Albert Turon & Josep Xercavins, 2018. "Distributing the Global Carbon Budget with climate justice criteria," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 131-145, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yao Li & Shuai Wang, 2023. "Personal emission permit trading scheme: urban spatial equilibrium and planning," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 116(1), pages 1239-1259, March.
    2. Chen, Feiyu & Chen, Qirui & Hou, Jing & Li, Shanshan, 2023. "Effects of China's carbon generalized system of preferences on low-carbon action: A synthetic control analysis based on text mining," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. von Wright, Tuuli & Kaseva, Janne & Kahiluoto, Helena, 2022. "Needs must? Fair allocation of personal carbon allowances in mobility," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2022. "Rendre acceptable la nécessaire taxation du carbone. Quelles pistes pour la France ?," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 15-53.
    3. Ravigné, Emilien & Ghersi, Frédéric & Nadaud, Franck, 2022. "Is a fair energy transition possible? Evidence from the French low-carbon strategy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    4. Nie, Qingyun & Zhang, Lihui & Li, Songrui, 2022. "How can personal carbon trading be applied in electric vehicle subsidies? A Stackelberg game method in private vehicles," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    5. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline & Mouez Fodha, 2023. "Debt, tax and environmental policy [Dette, taxe et politique environnementale]," Post-Print halshs-04181981, HAL.
    6. Weiner, Csaba & Muth, Dániel & Lakócai, Csaba, 2023. "A szén-dioxid-kibocsátást terhelő adó társadalmi elfogadottsága és a fizetési hajlandóság alakulása Magyarországon [Public acceptance of and willingness to pay for a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1077-1107.
    7. Anna-Katharina Kothe & Alexander Kuptel & Roman Seidl, 2021. "Simulating Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) with an Agent-Based Model (ABM): Investigating Adaptive Reduction Rates and Path Dependence," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-15, November.
    8. Ewald, Jens & Sterner, Thomas & Sterner, Erik, 2022. "Understanding the resistance to carbon taxes: Drivers and barriers among the general public and fuel-tax protesters," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    9. Sommer, Stephan & Mattauch, Linus & Pahle, Michael, 2022. "Supporting carbon taxes: The role of fairness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    10. Wadud, Zia & Chintakayala, Phani Kumar, 2019. "Personal Carbon Trading: Trade-off and Complementarity Between In-home and Transport Related Emissions Reduction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 397-408.
    11. Vona, Francesco, 2023. "Managing the distributional effects of climate policies: A narrow path to a just transition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    12. Fanghella, Valeria & Faure, Corinne & Guetlein, Marie-Charlotte & Schleich, Joachim, 2023. "What's in it for me? Self-interest and preferences for distribution of costs and benefits of energy efficiency policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    13. Stephan Sommer & Théo Konc & Stefan Drews, 2023. "How resilient is public support for carbon pricing? Longitudinal evidence from Germany," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0021, Berlin School of Economics.
    14. Sommer, Stephan & Konc, Théo & Drews, Stefan, 2023. "How Resilient is Public Support for Carbon Pricing? Longitudinal Evidence from Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 1017, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Tan, Xueping & Wang, Xinyu & Zaidi, Syed Haider Ali, 2019. "What drives public willingness to participate in the voluntary personal carbon-trading scheme? A case study of Guangzhou Pilot, China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Fan, Jin & Li, Jun & Wu, Yanrui & Wang, Shanyong & Zhao, Dingtao, 2016. "The effects of allowance price on energy demand under a personal carbon trading scheme," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 242-249.
    17. Daniele Malerba, 2022. "The Effects of Social Protection and Social Cohesion on the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies: What Do We (Not) Know in the Context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(3), pages 1358-1382, June.
    18. Zhao, Jiaxin & Mattauch, Linus, 2022. "When standards have better distributional consequences than carbon taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    19. Dütschke, Elisabeth & Preuß, Sabine & Brunzema, Iska & Piria, Raffaele, 2023. "Using the revenues from carbon pricing - Insights into the acceptance and perceptions of particularly burdened groups," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    20. Sebastian Levi & Christian Flachsland & Michael Jakob, 2020. "Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 128-156, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:201:y:2022:i:c:s092180092200249x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.