Second World War-style rationing of petrol, household energy and meat could help to fight climate change, British scientists have recommended.
Researchers from Leeds said that rationing would help countries to cut their carbon emissions “rapidly and fairly” even though it was often seen as an “unpalatable” option.
Making a comparison with the need to limit the consumption of certain goods as they grew scarce during the war, researchers noted that the idea of achieving this by increasing taxes was rejected in the 1940s because “the impact of tax rises would be slow and inequitable”. Their study, published in the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment, noted: “Rationing has been neglected as a climate change mitigation policy option.”
It added that rationing was widely accepted in Britain during the conflict, explaining: “As long as there was scarcity, rationing was accepted, even welcomed or demanded.”
Rationing did not end in Britain until 1954, nine years after the end of the war.
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The researchers said: “Rationing is often seen as unattractive, and therefore not a viable option for policy-makers. It is important to highlight the fact that this was not the case for many of those who had experienced rationing. It is important to emphasise the difference between rationing itself and the scarcity that rationing was a response to. Of course, people did welcome the end of rationing, but they were really celebrating the end of scarcity, and celebrating the fact that rationing was no longer necessary.”
The paper notes, however, that people may “not accept rationing when there is an abundance of resources available”. The researchers argue that, as a first step, governments would need to regulate sectors such as the oil industry, with the importing of fossil fuels “banned or restricted” in certain areas. This would create a scarcity of fossil fuels, with rationing then introduced to “manage the scarcity”, they explain.
A release issued with the study notes: “Governments could ration specifically selected goods, such as flights, petrol, household energy, or even meat or clothing”. The paper adds: “Governments could limit the number of long-haul flights an individual could make in a year or they could limit the amount of petrol one can buy in a month.”
An alternative method would be through the “modernisation of rationing with carbon cards, like bank cards, to keep track of your carbon allowance rather than ration cards”, the study adds. The researchers recommend that people should not be allowed to trade or sell their carbon allowance, arguing: “It is feasible that allowance-based schemes could exist with non-tradable allowances.”
Dr Nathan Wood — joint lead author of the study, who was based at the sustainability research institute at Leeds University and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Utrecht University’s fair energy consortium — said: “The concept of rationing could help, not only in the mitigation of climate change, but also in reference to a variety of other social and political issues — such as the current energy crisis.”
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Dr Rob Lawlor, his fellow joint lead author and a lecturer at the inter- disciplinary ethics applied centre at Leeds, said: “There is a limit to how much we can emit if we are to reduce the catastrophic impacts of climate change. In this sense, the scarcity is very real.”