Citizen's Dividend (Sky Dividend)

Short explanation

A citizen's dividend in case of the Sky Fund means that every citizen receives a regular payment from the revenue raised when permits to emit carbon emissions are sold to corporations.  

Elaborate explanation

More generally, a citizen's dividend is a proposed policy based on the principle that the natural world is common property of all people. The consequence of this is that all citizens are entitled to receive payments from revenue raised from selling the permits to use nature or common property. 

An already successfully implemented example of a citizen's dividend is the Alaska Permanent Fund. 25% of the oil revenue is designated to the fund since 1976 which has resulted in a $64 billion fund. Dividends from the fund are paid out to each Alaskan equally. This has resulted in a payment of $1600 on average per year for each Alaskan. 
 

The idea can be traced back to Thomas Paine, a political theorist who wrote two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution. Paine proposed in Agrarian Justice that landowners should pay the community a ground rent for exploiting the land he holds.

Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice: "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."

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Although Paine is one of the more recent prominent proposers of a citizen's dividend, already in Classical Athens in 483 BC a citizen's dividend was proposed by statesman Aristides. When a large seam of silver was found he proposed that the profits would be distributed to the citizens of Athens. Unfortunately, a competing statesman Themistocles opposed him and lead the state to building warships for the Athenian navy instead.