Toco AG

Climate change results from a failure of our economic model. This arises from what economists call a negative externality - when the cost of emissions is not included in our economy. This classic collective-action problem, sometimes called a Tragedy of the Commons, is a well-researched subject in economics where a shared resource tends to be rapidly depleted because no single actor – whether a country, organisation or person – considers how their actions affect other users of the resource. In other words, because a participant reaps all of the benefits but suffers only part or none of the costs, they are tempted to over-exploit the resource. We propose a new unit of international trade (t) where each unit in circulation represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent that has been credibly reduced or removed from the atmosphere. Carbon mitigation is now driven by economic activity, not by moral and ethical motives.