Cap and Share

Cap and Share[1] is a regulatory and economic framework for controlling the use of fossil fuels in relation to climate stabilisation.

Originally developed by Feasta (the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability), the foundation believed that climate change is a global problem and that there is a need to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally, the philosophy of Cap and Share maintains that the Earth's atmosphere is a fundamental common resource.

Given the vast discrepancies in fossil fuel use between the wealthy and poor on a global level, Cap and Share would have a highly progressive economic effect, reducing inequality and helping to support climate justice and the energy transition in the Global South.

In the variant which Feasta is currently promoting, fossil fuel companies would be obliged to buy a limited number of permits for their production (or imports, in a non-global system) each year, and the funds generated by the permit sales would then be shared out to the population on a per-capita basis.

[5] The book includes a paper by the late economist Richard Douthwaite, entitled "Time for some optimism about the climate crisis".

The recipients would then sell their certificates through the banking system to oil, coal and gas producers who would need to acquire enough of them to cover the carbon dioxide emissions that would be emitted from all of the fossil fuel they sold.

Cap and Share is partly an extension and popularisation of the Contraction and Convergence proposal developed by the Global Commons Institute, which also calls for an equal per capita distribution of emissions.

From their perspective, a definite, substantial decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, carried out in an equitable way so that the poor are not adversely affected, is well worth a possible decrease in aggregate "welfare" as measured by GDP (a highly problematic instrument for measuring wellbeing[14]).

Nuclear, solar, wind, and hydroelectric power industries are all likely to become more attractive options if governments implemented economic consequences on utilizing fuel sources that expel carbon dioxide.