A novel personal carbon scheme for public engagement in climate actions

Although climate change is widely known, public behavioural engagement remains limited. This study explores the disruptive value of a bottom-up personal carbon emission reduction (CER) scheme, defined hereafter as Personal Carbon Volunteering (PCV). PCV aims to engage the public in climate actions and build individual ownership of climate mitigation by quantifying and visualizing their contribution from daily activities to CER. In PCV, the CER of personal low-carbon activities is quantified as computable units, recorded to personal carbon accounts, and rewarded with nature-based solutions. A real-world example of PCV is Ant Forest, a public welfare environmental project, which has engaged over 600 million users in China (about 43.9% of China’s population) to plant over 475 million trees and shrubs since 2016. PCV schemes like Ant Forest could serve as a template to expand it globally and foster the development of bottom-up actions in the battle against climate change. • Proposed PCV can serve as a bottom-up personal carbon emission reduction scheme. • Ant Forest, a real-world PCV example, has engaged over 600 million users in China. • Scaled-up PCV is expected to deliver two practical visions in addressing climate crisis.