science

Personal carbon credits

Personal carbon credits is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Personal carbon credits rather than just read about it. In short: Personal carbon credits are carbon credits created and owned by individuals who reduce their green house gas (GHG) emissions by a real and verifiable amount. Individuals cause GHG emissions from a variety of direct and indirect activities including transportation use, electrical use and home heating and cooling.

Key takeaways

Personal carbon credits belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Personal carbon credits to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Personal carbon credits from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Personal carbon credits are carbon credits created and owned by individuals who reduce their green house gas (GHG) emissions by a real and verifiable amount. Individuals cause GHG emissions from a variety of direct and indirect activities including transportation use, electrical use and home heating and cooling. Verifiable reductions in GHG emissions are aggregated into 1 metric ton increments and they become personal Carbon Credits. There are many firms that are creating applications to efficiently measure and track these emissions, while providing options to purchase and offset personal emissions. Traditional carbon credits are purchased by GHG emitters to offset the difference between their actual emissions and their allowable limit under a cap and trade type GHG reduction program or to reduce their total GHG emissions under a voluntary limit. These same credits are created when specific GHG reduction projects produce real, additional and verifiable GHG reductions. These carbon projects are typically large in scale and include reforestation, fuel switching and biogas projects. Personal carbon credits follow the same concept as traditional carbon credits, but these projects are small in scale, developed by individuals and encourage actual reduction in energy demand at the use point. They are applicable globally, wherever the verification requirements can be satisfied. Personal carbon credits differ from personal carbon trading which imposes a cap or allowance on individual GHG emissions. Personal carbon credits are a voluntary method for individuals to directly reduce energy consumption and the resulting GHG emissions. Successful individual reductions are rewarded through lower utility costs and the value of the created personal carbon credits. Personal carbon credits were first introduced by My Emissions Exchange in April 2009. Some experts on carbon credit markets have called for inclusion of small scale GHG reduction projects and verification methods that are valid, appropriate and cost effective for projects of this size. Personal carbon credits address this need and create more opportunities for GHG reductions.

Verification Verification and certification of all carbon credits are necessary to insure real GHG reductions are occurring and to insure buyer confidence in using credits to offset GHG emissions. There are many certification standards in existence today for both the compliance and voluntary credit markets. Personal carbon credits are a new approach to GHG reduction strategies and as such there are no specific protocols existing today within the various certification standards, specifically, because personal carbon credits are so new. However, the proper design of the verification system, such as the use of utility company billing meters and review of historical consumption patterns, can insure that personal carbon credits comply with all the requirements of The Greenhouse Gas Protocol by the World Resources Institute, including additionality. Greater awareness of personal carbon credits will encourage certification organizations to develop specific protocols in the future.

See also Individual action on climate change

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Personal carbon credits

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Personal carbon credits claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Personal carbon credits before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Personal carbon credits ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Personal carbon credits

In research: Personal carbon credits appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Personal carbon credits in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Personal carbon credits is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Carbon finance, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Personal carbon credits outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Personal carbon credits in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Personal carbon credits means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Personal carbon credits out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Personal carbon credits in simple terms?

Why does Personal carbon credits matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Personal carbon credits?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Personal carbon credits.