Capping Carbon!

The focus of this month's meetup will be using market mechanisms to reduce carbon fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Our speaker will be Bruce Darrell of Feasta, The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, based in Dublin, Ireland.

"Governments throughout the world are increasingly aware of the urgent necessity to drastically reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming, and to insulate their economies from soaring energy prices as world oil production peaks. But how can this be done effectively, quickly, without destroying the economy or impoverishing large sections of the population? Cap and trade mechanisms such as the the EU Emission Trading System are limited to sections of the economy and have serious flaws, while carbon taxes are unpopular and potentially damaging to the economy.

"Cap and Share is a second generation emission control mechanism that has been designed to effectively, equitably and efficiently reduce emissions at a national or global level. It is currently being studied by the Irish government as a mechanism to reduce transport emissions."

Bruce Darrell is an architect and member of the Executive Committee of Feasta.