'Climate Tax' on Meat and Dairy Would Sink Emissions and Diseases: Study

Taxing the meat and dairy industries for their impact on climate would lead to lower emissions and save about half a million lives per year, according to the first global study of the issue, published Tuesday.

A 40 percent fee on beef and a 20 percent fee on dairy would counter the industries’ impact on climate change, as livestock release significant greenhouse gases while exacerbating deforestation, and would encourage people to consume less of each—which in turn would improve global health, according to the Oxford Martin Program on the Future of Food, part of the University of Oxford.

The study (pdf), published in the journal Nature Climate Change, finds that raising the price of beef by 40 percent would lead to a 13 percent decrease in consumption.

It is also the latest evidence that keeping global emissions below 2°C and preventing widespread irreversible damage cannot happen without global food system reform. Other recent studies have found that not only is Big Agriculture incapable of “feeding the world” as biochemical giants like Monsanto have promised, but that the focus must actually be on empowering local, small-scale farmers.

The United Nations warned last month that millions more people are at risk of being pushed into poverty and starvation by 2030 without radical system change.

“The food system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, most of which are related to livestock,” the study states. “[R]educing the GHG emissions related to food production will have to become a critical component of policies aimed at mitigating climate change.”

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Lead researcher Marco Springmann told the Guardian on Tuesday, “It is clear that if we don’t do something about the emissions from our food system, we have no chance of limiting climate change below 2°C.”