A climate tax on meat?

Abstract

The livestock sector contributes substantially to global warming. In addition to technological measures, an option for lowering the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from this sector could be to reduce meat production. A way of influencing production in this direction is to reduce consumption. However, voluntary changes in lifestyle would probably not be sufficient. Too few people would be prepared to do this for these changes to make a real difference. General changes in lifestyle in the population would rather require coercive measures, for example in terms of a meat tax. In this paper, I investigate the pros and cons of a climate tax on meat. In particular, I discuss whether the tax should be GHG weighted or not, given the much higher GHG intensity of ruminant meat (beef and sheep meat) compared to pork and chicken meat. I suggest that we introduce a GHG weighted tax within the EU with a higher tax on consumption of beef and sheep meat than on consumption of pork and chicken meat. However, if necessary for successful mitigation of climate change, I do not exclude that the tax could in a second step be turned into a non-GHG weighted tax, stimulating people to be more radical and eat even less meat.