The New Zealand government on Tuesday proposed taxing greenhouse gas emissions from farm animals as part of its effort to reduce the pollution that causes climate change.
The tax would be the world’s first on animal emissions, including those from belching and urinating, which contribute to rising global temperatures. The plan would be economically beneficial, according to the government, as consumers around the world would become more environmentally conscious and the revenue generated by the tax would go towards research and technology to capture animal emissions and incentive payments to farmers.
“New Zealand farmers will be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions and position our largest export market for the competitive advantage brought by a world that is increasingly critical of where its food comes from,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. (Lynn Grieveson/Getty Images)
As a by-product of their digestion, farm animals like cows and sheep release methane — a greenhouse gas that causes 80 times more warming in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years. This includes methane in flatulence and manure, but the largest source of methane from animals is burps. Methane accounts for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. According to the United Nations, livestock accounts for 14.5% of total global emissions.
New Zealand is a largely rural, agricultural country with a population of 5 million and approximately 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep. According to government data from 2019, 37% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions came from methane, and 88.4% of methane emissions came from livestock. About three quarters come from cows, the rest from sheep.
The New Zealand government has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, including a 10% reduction in methane emissions from livestock by 2030 and 47% by 2050.
These emissions could potentially be reduced by capturing methane in belching cow masks or other new technologies.
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Cows wait to be milked at a dairy farm in New Zealand’s Waikato region. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
When the government first floated the idea of a burp tax in June, the New Zealand farm lobby backed it. “We’ve been working with the government and other organizations for years to find an approach that doesn’t shut down farming in New Zealand, so we’ve signed a lot of things that we’re happy with,” said Andrew Hoggard, the national President of the Federated Farmers of New Zealand, told the BBC at the time.
But the proposal, presented on Tuesday, was met with skepticism by industry groups, who said the tax would cripple farmers and ranchers’ businesses, though the price hasn’t been set. Hoggard said his group found the government was not responding to their concerns and warned the measure would “rip the guts out of small New Zealand town”.
New Zealand Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor countered that mitigating climate change is also important to protect future farmers’ livelihoods.
“Farmers are already experiencing the effects of climate change with more frequent droughts and floods,” O’Connor said. “Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is good for both the environment and our economy.”