Drivers may face limits on the carbon emissions produced by their cars, which could affect the number of journeys that they can make.

As part of a wider plan to slow climate change, car users could be given individual limits on the amount of carbon they are allowed to emit. Drivers polluting above the limit would have to pay for the privilege.

Motorists who use their cars too often or own inefficient vehicles could have to buy pollution “permits” from drivers of more environmentally friendly cars who had not used their full entitlement.

David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, floated the idea of pollution limits for cars in a speech at the University of Cambridge last night. He said that Europe should consider including surface transport in the Continent’s emissions trading scheme, which is designed to regulate a reduction in carbon emissions among industrial polluters. The scheme covers heavy users of energy including power, steel and glass companies. However, its scope was expected to broaden to include airlines and other significant users.

Mr Miliband has previously raised the prospect of expanding the scheme to include personal carbon limits for every citizen. “If household decisions on energy and transport cover 44 per cent of emissions, then it is worth looking at how an individual market mechanism would work,” he told The Times yesterday, adding that personal schemes were still under consideration. He said that emissions from new cars could be cut by 30 per cent if all consumers bought the most fuel-efficient vehicle in its category. Further gains could come from the spread of hybrid technology, which makes use of batteries to help to power cars.

Mr Miliband will lead calls today for all European businesses to face the full cost of the carbon emissions they create, as part of a push for progress on deciding the details of the scheme after 2012.

“This year is a key one if we are to secure a long-term future for emissions trading as well as moving towards a global deal on climate change post2012,” he and Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, say in a joint letter to The Times today, co-signed by the CBI and the WWF.

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