Governments let companies pay to pollute. Imagine if you could pay companies not to pollute?

Actually, you can. All you need is a web connection and a credit card.

Carbon trading is a big part of how rich countries are attempting to meet their targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The basic idea is that governments allocate or sell a limited number of permits to pollute. Companies can sell the permits, so although they can pay to pollute, they have a financial incentive to innovate and cut their emissions.

Ideas like this will become increasingly important. The United States does not yet have a carbon trading scheme in place but it’s considered likely that this will change after Barack Obama becomes President. On a lesser scale, Australia is moving in a similar direction since belatedly signing the Kyoto Protocol under its new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

Yet even without the participation of the U.S., the world market in greenhouse gases is already worth $48.26 billion. The European Union carbon trading market is one of the biggest components.

The system is far from perfect – the EU has handed out too many permits, it won’t start charging for them until 2013, and the price of carbon is low. The scheme has not been a disaster but it’s fair to say the scheme is not a driver of massive environmental change right now.

A small group of UK environmentalists have come up with an ingenious plan to speed things up.

EU rules specifically allow individuals to participate in carbon trading. That’s where you come in. For the cost of a membership fee, an organization called Sandbag will buy permits on your behalf and cancel them! The fewer permits in the system, the less pollution is permitted.

Sandbag has loads more information on its website about who they are and how this works. They are a member of the Guardian Environment Network, so they’ve been vetted by The Guardian.

I often feel that arcane economic levers such as carbon trading are the domain of pointy-headed policy wonks. This is such an imaginative response to it and one that puts the power back in our hands. I want and need a clean planet and I’m prepared to pay for it. Now I can.

Image: Señor Codo