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An article published by The Guardian in 2006 described the then UK Environment Secretary David Miliband’s attempt to issue every UK citizen with a carbon “credit card” – that would be swiped every time we bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket – under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five years.

David Miliband was the Member of the Parliament (Labour) for South Shields in North East England from 2001 to 2013.  He is currently the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (“IRC”). IRC is officially a global humanitarian aid, relief and development non-governmental organisation. The reality is it has, historically at least, close ties to the intelligence community.

David started his career at the Institute for Public Policy Research (“IPPR”), a UK-registered charity and think tank with links to the Labour Party, where he worked between 1989 and 1994.  

(Note: In 2022, the third-largest funder of the IPPR was the Hewlett Foundation, after the Laudes Foundation and the European Climate Foundation.  According to Wikispooks, the Hewlett Foundation finances a large number of projects furthering deep state agendas.)

Aged 29, David became Tony Blair’s Head of Policy while the Labour Party was in opposition, and he was a contributor to Labour’s manifesto for the 1997 election, which brought the party to power. Blair subsequently made him head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit from 1997 to 2001, at which point David was elected to Parliament.

David spent the next few years in various junior ministerial posts, including at the Department for Education and Skills, before joining the Cabinet in 2006 as Environment Secretary.  His tenure as Environment Secretary saw climate change consolidated as a priority for policymakers. 

In 2006, he pioneered the world’s first legally binding emissions reduction requirements. In the same year, The Guardian published an interview with David which we have reproduced below.  You will instantly recognise the plan, publicised over 17 years ago, as the same that that independent media and citizen journalists have been highlighting in recent years.

Before we get to The Guardian’s 2006 article about David’s attempt to implement a nationwide carbon rationing scheme, it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves about his brother Ed, who is still active in UK politics, as it may serve as a warning of what we can expect from a Labour government.

David is the elder son of the late Marxist sociologist Ralph Miliband.  His younger brother Ed Miliband was the Labour Party leader between 2010 and 2015.  Ed has been the Member of Parliament for Doncaster North (Labour) since 2005.

In 2008, Ed led a newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change.  At the time, his brother David was UK Foreign Secretary.  A source close to Ed told The Guardian that the two brothers were personally very close. “[They both] tend to see the environment as part of the left. Ed, who’s very committed to social justice, will try to find a way of making that part of the environment brief,” the source said.

Speaking of the newly created department, Government insiders said there was a need for one department to take the lead in negotiations for a new international climate treaty the following year, and to take lead responsibility for delivering a new emissions reduction target.

“The new department will have control over nearly two-thirds of UK carbon emissions which come from energy for electricity and heat. The remainder is from transport and agriculture,” The Guardian wrote in 2008 and quoted John Sauven, head of Greenpeace, who said: “Bringing energy and climate together at last reflects the urgency of the threat we face from climate change.”

Read more: Ed Miliband named as head of new climate and energy department, The Guardian, 3 October 2008

On 26 November 2008, while Ed was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, The Climate Change Act was passed which grants powers allowing the UK Government to introduce a personal carbon trading scheme without further primary legislation.  In other words, the government of the day can implement such a scheme without having to pass it through Parliament first.

Further reading: Personal carbon trading scheme on Wikipedia via EncycloReader

In December 2008, under the Act, a Cabinet Committee on Climate Change was launched chaired by the Prime Minister.  The two main UK government departments responsible for climate change are the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Since 2021, Ed has been serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Miliband Plans Carbon Trading ‘Credit Cards’ for Everyone

The following was originally published by The Guardian on 11 December 2006.

Every citizen would be issued with a carbon “credit card” – to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket – under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five years, according to a feasibility study commissioned by the environment secretary, David Miliband, and published today.

In an interview with The Guardian, Mr. Miliband said the idea of individual carbon allowances had “a simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift.”

He acknowledged the proposal faced technical difficulties, but said ministers needed to seek ways of overcoming them.

The idea was floated in a speech in the summer, but the detailed proposals show Mr. Miliband is serious about trying to press ahead with the radical idea as a central part of his climate change strategy.

Under the scheme, everybody would be given an annual allowance of the carbon they could expend on a range of products, probably food, energy and travel. If they wanted to use more carbon, they would be able to buy it from somebody else. And they could sell any surplus.

The study was prepared by the Centre for Sustainable Energy for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It argues that firms like Tesco have shown that complex computer schemes logging billions of transactions are feasible. “Tesco Clubcard is collecting, storing and analysing some 50bn pieces of data a year,” it says.

The study also claims that individual carbon trading is less regressive than carbon taxes, as the poor emit less than the rich. Instead of flat “green” taxes, it proposes a hybrid system using permits and taxes, with the permits possibly issued, tracked and traded through the existing banking system using pin and chip technology. Carbon allowances could be treated as bank accounts.

The report admits huge questions would have to be resolved, including the risk of fraud, the relationship to ID cards, and costs. However, Mr. Miliband said, “bold thinking is required because the world is in a dangerous place.”

He said: “It is a way of pricing carbon emissions into individual behaviour and it would recognise carbon thrift, as well as economic thrift. Twenty years ago, if I had said 8 million people would have a Tesco loyalty card, no one would have believed me.” The scheme will be discussed at a special cabinet committee on the future role of the state convened for today.

Featured image inset: World War II-style rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions, according to new research from the University, Leeds University, 20 February 2023