Cap & Share as a global scheme

Cap & Share can operate on a global level, at a national level, or simply in one sector of an economy. Since climate change is a global problem, we'll have to have some global system, even if it consists of tying together separate national arrangements in each country.

Cap & Share was developed as a global system by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. A book describing the global system in detail is available here.

At a global level there would have to be a central institution which issued certificates or auctioned permits, and which policed the primary fossil fuel suppliers. In a global scheme, fossil fuel suppliers are simply those companies which extract fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) from the ground - there are no 'importers' from other planets.

If, instead of issuing certificates to the world population, permits were auctioned to fossil fuel suppliers and the funds distributed to the people, this would be equivalent to a global form of "Cap & Dividend" (see the Other schemes page). In the global context this simpler procedure would be more practical.

However, it's more likely in practice that the global revenue from auctioning the permits would be distributed to countries, say to a trust in each country, and that each country would decide itself how best to further distrubute the revenues within that country. Different countries might prefer different methods: it's unlikely that they would all choose the same system.

The value of each person's share - the same the world over - would be common knowledge, which would help in limiting the possibilities for siphoning off some of the money fraudulently.

A global Cap & Share system need not rebate (share out directly to the people) all the money directly. One proposal is that some would go to a Transition Fund, aimed at direct funding of adaptation and mitigation measures. Many things that need doing (such as building sea walls) are not things that individuals or households can do - we need to do these things collectively.