The Global Carbon Reward is a system-changing policy for funding climate mitigation together with healthy ecosystems, vibrant communities, and reliable clean energy.
Quote
Quote
❝ I believe we need a new theory on carbon pricing to resolve the climate crisis. ❞
— Dr. Delton Chen (Founder)
Podcast
Introduction
Unsustainable Growth
Optimal Growth
● Greater energy efficiency occurs when better/more goods and services can be produced with the same/fewer energy inputs.
● Carbon safety occurs when the carbon cycle is managed for stabilising the climate, and for supporting the regeneration of ecosystems and communities.
A new biophysical interpretation of civilisation — as a complex system — is espoused on this website. A key feature of this interpretation is that the world economy enables civilisation to evolve towards higher global energy efficiency. A second key feature of this interpretation is that civilisation currently lacks the economic structure for improving global carbon safety. Without a new economic structure that is optimised for carbon safety, it appears likely that civilisation will drive a planetary-level extinction event.
‘Carrot and Stick’ Carbon Pricing
The main focus of this website is a new monetary tool, called a carbon reward. The carbon reward will be a global ‘carrot’ for incentivising and funding climate mitigation and co-benefits.
The purpose of the carbon reward is to improve carbon safety using three key strategies:
● fund sufficient greenhouse gas removal, and on a global scale
● fund sufficient conventional climate mitigation, including strategic energy infrastructure
● fund regeneration of natural, social and built capital.
The economic policy for the carbon reward has four key features:
● a global price for mitigated carbon
● no direct costs
● no carbon offsetting and no carbon trading in the policy
● stakeholder representation.
The website provides a detailed introduction to the Global Carbon Reward policy, the new theory on carbon pricing, and a biophysical analysis for understanding the energy and carbon dynamics of the global economy.
Updated 8 August 2022
Interview
WSJ: Could a Carbon Coin Save the Planet?Could a ‘Carbon Coin’ Save the Planet?
Scott Patterson at the WSJ takes a look at why a carbon currency (aka “carbon coin”) could transform the economy. He talks with Australian civil engineer Delton Chen, to review the carbon currency that is portrayed in Kim Stanley Robinson’s climate-catastrophe novel.
Feature Story
The Ministry for the Future
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
Science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson writes about “the Chen paper” in his latest novel: The Ministry for the Future. Robinson describes a series of fictional events that lead to the establishment of an organisation that mitigates climate change. Robinson calls the initiative “carbon coin”. Robinson’s “carbon coin” is a fictional adaptation of Dr. Chen’s “carbon currency” that is the basis of the Global Carbon Reward. Robinson writes: “We have to save the biosphere from catastrophic heating. We also have a market that won’t invest enough in this project. So governments need to do it, by way of creating new money specifically targeted to pay for rapid decarbonization”.
Getting Started
Demonstration
In a real-world application of the Global Carbon Reward policy, the trading of the carbon currency will not involve any carbon offsetting and this is because the carbon currency does not convey the ownership of mitigated carbon. The carbon currency only acts as a store of value. Information on the pricing theory and the system of governance can be found via the links in the main menu.
Updated 5 January 2022
Carbon Rewards
Reward Weightings
