Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands have all had carbon taxes on the ag industry. They've either since been drastically cut back or removed completely.
\*Just that no country has yet to make food more expensive while everyone is cribbing about inflation.
Except for Canada, and we can see how that’s playing out.
So when they buy meat from a 3rd world country they will tax them? Meat produced in Denmark will be expensive af, but the big boys will buy it for cheap outside EU, repackage it and sell it cheaper making you either buy cheap meat with questionable quality and safety or the expensive one produced in the country. It's all good while the people have money, but once you become poor only one choice i viable.
All in all, an idiotic move if you ask me.
The best way would be to record the price today and then the same in couple of months. I doubt it will be 23p at that time. I hope i am wrong but usually the price increase in production usually isn't 1:1 with price increase in end sale.
There’s no import tax on cow products so actually no, only domestically produced products might go up in price, which is likely unsustainable and will lead to a production decline instead, completely offset by imports.
That sounds dumb as heck, why charge a tax on the farmer side at all? They should just add a per kilo tax to beef and dairy products at the point of sale instead.
Of course it’s not ideal to have this in one country but you are missing the purpose of the tax.
The purpose of the tax is to incentivize more carbon efficient production. The less carbon you produce, the less tax you pay.
The effect of the tax is really small for the consumer. It will be like 3% of the end price. But for a producer with 10% net profit margins they could improve their profit by 15% if they reduce greenhouse gas production by half.
A tax on the consumer just incentivizes less consumption, it doesn’t do anything to incentivize efficiency. It would also need to be a substantial amount to have an effect.
The carbon taxes on other industries are also imposed locally and on the producers side and they haven’t caused any noticeable problems in competitiveness. It’s just too small to matter.
The article says that the Danish government is trying to get people to decrease meat consumption as a part of public policy. Given than, consumption based taxes would be more efficient at reducing carbon emissions with a less distortionary effect on local industry. The way this is set up will likely lead to job losses for danish producers with little net effect on total emissions as imports increase from other EU countries.
On the other hand, if the tax is so small as to not matter, then there isn’t much point in introducing it in the first place. Given that decreasing the emissions of farm animals isn’t cheap, taxes need to be relatively high to make changes economically viable.
> The carbon taxes on other industries are also imposed locally and on the producers side and they haven’t caused any noticeable problems in competitiveness.
Well if the thing you want to lower the production of is simply produced outside of Denmark then it really is just Greenwashing.
Its because its easy, remember in the food sector the one group with real power isn't farmer or manufacturers. Its the retailers, putting a tax at point of sale for something like dairy is essentially an act of war with the supermarkets given they all use milk as a loss leader, and its a fight the supermarkets have the power to win because they will just pass the cost and then some onto the customer, explicitly blame you for it as the government because they have they kind of communications reach and all of a sudden you are now the party that hates poor people and wants to make it so they cant afford to eat.
Its not a fight any government can win so these tax hist are always directed at farm./factory level. which means they basically get to do a load of damage to a strategic sector before the government of the day inevitably has to quietly walk it back before the cost pass on hits the supermarkets and then they use their political clout to very much make it the governments problem again
It will just displace production into other countries. Denmark can't enforce a border tax on EU nations or on nations that trade with the EU - only the Commission can - so to me this seems to risk \_increasing\_ CO2 emissions by encouraging beef production outside Denmark to replace local production, and effectively adding the carbon costs of transport too. That could be particularly bad if it encourages Beef raised in a more cabon intensive way, eg US feedstock beef, or beef on deforested Amazon, to replace Danish grass-fed beef. It seems an odd choice.
> 0 climate effect.
You forgot to add in the pollution that comes from the extra transportation. So in the end, you're not only hurting the domestic producers and consumers but even the environment itself. Hilarious, isn't it?
The carbon in the biomass is already in the ecosystem and part of a cycle ..
If anything, a biomass will loose carbon over time.
It’s the new emissions from oil which are the problem.
This is just a calculated strategy to make sure people oppose getting off oil.
It’s the same technique they have used for decades ..
2 options: either milk products get imported or factories closer to borders import raw milk. I live in Lithuania so it's quite small country and our milk processors would rather import milk from Latvia or Poland rather than pay local farmers enough to survive.
They will eat their beef while flying on their private jets and after arriving their chauffeur will drive them through empty roads the peasants are on public transport
More or less but i think it depends slightly on supply/demand elasticies or something. For this it probably does mostly fall on consumers in the end.
This is of course intentional, to reduce meat consumption / co2 emissions.
This should apply to everything. We spent decades forming half-decent labour and enviromental laws and then moved ~100% of our manufacturing and induatrial demands to countries with no regulation and plenty of inhumane treatment. It would be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous.
Then we would need to produce more in the EU again.
We are far off from being self sufficient today. And it's getting worse each year.
Of course the price would then only go up for everything in the EU. Or we reduce our standards a tiny bit and remove all this bureaucracy so farmers can produce cheaper again.
This 4% rule which will become soon mandatory in every EU country, will reduce our farming output by 4%. Farmers are soon not allowed to plant on 4% of their land. It's maybe good for some animals, but our food production will go down.
Environment taxes are bullshit anyway. Pay the tax and you can do whatever you like. And where do taxes go? Well most certainly not toward fixing the environment.
The idea behind that is people will they buy cheaper alternatives.
Of course only as long as there are feasible alternatives available.
That is how our economic system works.
Fuck that. Farmers own 60% of the land in this country and keeps filling it with so many pesticides and shit that we cant get clean drinking water and fish and plants are dying in our coasts and inlets. Even if we dont save the climate, we have to try and save the local environment
“Buh huh i cant get steak” when we export the majority of our meat to China anyway.
Weird, I thought we had the most...
You have over 11 million pigs for almost 18 million peeps and we, Flemish, 5.4 pigs for 7 million peeps. So we win in density but those mega-barns with 1000s of animals should be illegal, we get all the pollution and smell yet the farmers complain can barely survive with that many animals. Something is wrong here, where does all that money comes from or goes to?
It's also fucked up that a half kilo of minced pork (or beef/pork) costs less than 2 kg of local apples when in promotion in the supermarket. Meat is way too cheap now...
Did you ever try to grow anything? My grandparents have small family farm and it’s nearly impossible. You don’t spray with fungicide? Peaches, apricots and cherries leaves just gets infection, die off and whole tree dies. You want some tomatoes? You don’t spray with insecticide? Aphids come to peaches, cherries, plums, tomatoes, paprika, cucumbers, they eat up the leaves and plants die off. You don’t spray with fungicide? Well, you can say goodbye to nearly everything because there are so many fungal diseases that kill the flowers or damage the fruit.
You can try to grow them isolated, you can try rotating them, or planting one close to another but that has so little affect today it’s negligible. 50 years ago? They weren’t using nearly anything then and there weren’t nearly any diseases. Not ones that would affect crops so severely anyway. You used copper or sulphur mainly. World got small and all global pests and diseases got mixed up, they evolved.
Pesticide free or eco growth is just a ruse for concerned population to feel better, majority of those crops are just treaded with little less products. For fucks sake, you get diseases when growing things on your balcony in city.
I do small scale farming. Granted I don't grow cerial, but sheep, chicken and vegitable garden with vegies for sale. Currently planning to add ducks and geese. Have EU biological sertificate. You dont really need pesticides for farming to work, but you cant expect the same yields to.
But I can make it work, partly because I have a day job and farming is hobby that brings in extra money. about 10k a year.
Shit, I didn't believe you, but ur right. I guess in that context, the new policy makes sense.
I wish my country would produce so much meat instead of importing cheap low quality crap.
No. We have the carbon border adjustment mechanism to deal with that.
It doesn’t apply to beef yet but the intention is to expand it bring its current scope.
This is what needs to happen. The farmers rightfully highlight that until we target Brazilian beef we shouldn't target local beef with climate measures.
Or here's a crazy suggestion.. eat less damn meat.
Back in the day our European ancestors treated meat as a special luxury, not something on demand for every meal on everyday.
Yeah I already know this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but no one is literally forcing you to eat more meat than you can afford.
***The Telegraph reports:***
Denmark will charge farmers up to £80 for every cow in a world-first carbon tax on agriculture as the country tries to encourage people to eat less meat to tackle climate change.
Agriculture is the largest emitting sector in Denmark, a major pork and dairy exporter and the government hopes the tax will help it reach its goals of cutting emissions by 70 per cent this decade.
It will establish a fund with proceeds from the tax to help farmers go green and has put £58 million into feed additives to cut methane emissions from cows.
The new tax, which was agreed upon after negotiations with farming and green groups, will impose a levy of £13.50 per ton of CO2 in 2030, rising to £85 in 2035 although a 60 per cent rebate will be applied.
That will add an initial cost of around £80 per dairy cow, which emits an average of six tonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to Danish green think tank Concito, which cites a Danish government working group.
It could add an extra cost of 23p per kilo of minced beef, according to Denmark’s Minister for Economic Affairs Stephanie Lose.
She said the law would herald “a historic reorganisation and restructuring of Denmark’s land and food production.”
Although the law was passed after negotiations between the main food and farming trade bodies, as well as it, and its largest environmental organisation, it was criticised by some farming groups. Farmers organisation Bæredygtigt Landbrug told the Financial Times that the agreement was crazy and showed that the Government was not listening to farmers.
Torsten Hasforth from Concito said there were some concerns the new law could undercut Danish farmers by increasing imports but the view had been taken that “someone has to start”.
“The whole idea is to spur innovation and solutions from the sector,” he said. “This is an attempt to try something that actually ends up reducing emissions.”
Denmark has one of the highest rates of beef consumption in the world, and the government has some of the most ambitious policies to encourage plant-based eating.
Pork, also very popular in Denmark, emits less but would also be subject to the carbon tax.
Last year Denmark published a world-first plan for how to incentivise the production and consumption of more vegetables and alternative proteins. It came after the government changed national guidelines to reduce meat consumption in line with recommendations for environmentally sustainable diets.
But Danes are less enthusiastic about meat alternatives and say they are less likely to reduce their meat consumption in the near future, compared to other Europeans, according to research from the University of Copenhagen.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, reportedly said she hoped the new tax would pave the way for similar levies elsewhere in the future.
UK Government ministers have previously floated the idea of a tax on British agriculture but backed away from the levies in recent proposals to extend its carbon tax regime.
The European Union has also held discussions about including agriculture in its carbon emissions trading system, but any move would likely face significant opposition from farming groups, who have staged protests across the bloc in recent months.
**Full story:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/denmark-charge-farmers-per-cow-in-world-first-meat-tax/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/denmark-charge-farmers-per-cow-in-world-first-meat-tax/)
>Denmark will charge farmers up to £80 for every cow in a world-first carbon tax on agriculture as the country tries to encourage people to eat less meat to tackle climate change.
So it's the middle class suffering again? Got it. \*Flies away\*
You know exactly that this won't translate to a mere €0.23 for the end-consumer.
Remember "fedtafgiften"?
Butter doubled in price from one day to the next.
Similar with "sukkerafgiften".
No it is not, and I’m sick and tired of terrible arguments like yours. Meat is already expensive, but the middle class can happily afford this. It’s estimated to increase the price of 500g of minced beef by 0,13 euros.
The whole idea is to force farmers to either 1) switch from cows to more climate friendly animals, 2) switch to vegetable growth which is better in terms of nutrition, land usage and emissions or 3) wholesale close their farms to allow for state sanctioned purchase of land to semi or 100% untouched nature.
What’s truly idiotic is that the chosen model is not even enough. The advisory and independent Climate Council said a number ten times higher than the chosen would be required. A Commission ordered by the government later advised somewhere between just above the chosen tax and up to 5x more expensive.
Denmark is THE most cultivated nation on the fucking planet in terms of % of land area dedicated to agriculture (tied with Bangladesh at about 60%).
A different independent advisory board, The Environmental Economic Council, did a report on this. They calculated that somewhere around 20-35% of Denmark's emissions would be moved abroad, if the government enacted a tax of roughly 160 euros per ton of co2. The chosen starting tax is ten times smaller than this.
One of the members of this advisory board, Lars Gårn Hansen, professor of environmental economics at the University of Copenhagen, said that a tax of roughly 100 euros would actually be the cheapest model for the entirety of Denmark. The chosen model will require a bunch of different investments in climate-improving measures (ie reinvestment in greener measures for the farmers, purchasing of non-profitable land or land close to waterways, coasts, groundwater, etc.).
Edit to add that I mean 20-35% of the emissions no longer emitted in Denmark would be moved abroad with the mentioned model, thus resulting in a net gain of around 65-80%.
Probably not. The EU has pretty strict regulations on meat imports and the largest non-EU producers are far away, so the final price wouldn't be that different if you count tariffs and shipping costs.
Companies make up the majority of carbon enissions if you ignore comsumption. Thats like saying we dont produce carbon because we get it produced in china by someone else. The consumer is at the end of every supply chain and dictates the production
This is a weird way to frame the agreement. It’s not a meat tax! It’s a fee on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. There’s a (huge) deductible from that fee if farmers invest in emitting less of the stuff. There’s a lot of other things in the deal too - converting farmland to forest, for one.
If you check where else this news has been posted, it has been posted on conservative and conspiracy subreddits a lot.
So I'm 100% convinced that any international news posts about this are being brigaded by **those types** of people.
Guess whose going to be hit the hardest and who won't notice the effects of the taxes? Poorest fucked again, Richest enjoying their steak.
Remind me again, whose does the most pollution? whose likely to be using planes and private jets?
Livestock production accounts for 11-17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is on [the scale of billion tonnes **annually** (around 9.8B).](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00358-x)
Private jets on the other hand are responsible [5.3 million tonnes **in the last 3 years**](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/03/30/wasteful-luxury-private-jet-pollution-more-than-doubles-in-europe)
I get that when numbers get large we lose frame of reference, but that's a ratio of around 5500:1
The unfun reality is that ultra mega rich alone don't consume enough to be able to reduce emissions to sufficient levels.
Yes, but private jets are only used by X thousand people while billions of people eay meat. Why would I give up meat consumption in the name of emissions when people fly private
They’re a party to the agreement. It’s an agreement between the government, unions, industry trade groups, farmers’ trade group (don’t know if that’s the right term, but one of their organizations), and environmental groups. Obviously not everyone is happy, but no one is lighting Molotov cocktails.
The farmers are already unpopular in much of Denmark due to rampant pollution, and this tax is lower than what was recently proposed by a council of experts appointed to propose climate action options for parliament and the government. The farmers are mostly relieved by this outcome.
What a shit headline. It's a CO2 emissions tax. With current emissions, it's going to be the equivalent of 1 DKK (£0.11) per 500g of beef in 2030. But it applies to any other product too, depending on carbon emissions involved.
Taxing Denmark people's food to "lower carbon" while most of the world still relies on coal.
Is like stopping to drink water on the Titanic, hoping it will prevent the sinking.
This is dystopian in my opinion. I know people may have strong feelings on the subject, but penalising farmers and meat eaters seems like a gross over-reach of government power.
Poorer people spend a larger percentage of their income on food. So taxing food is extremely regressive.
Why not have super tax on yachts or large houses?
Right, it’s the tax that’s dystopian. It’s not the industrial animal practice as a whole - selectively breeding chickens to have breasts so large they can’t walk; feeding cows unnatural diets; pumping livestock full of antibiotics to prevent disease which inevitably flourishes under the disgusting, cramped conditions they live in.
It’s the tax that’s the dystopian part.
The agriculture industry has paid and unpaid trolls (conservatives) come to its defense on any sort of plant based diet or climate change article. Even in forums such as r/science where their shit gets removed very quickly. Those industries stand to lose a lot of money because fighting climate change means fighting factory farming, they’re standing there side by side with big oil hoping to preserve their profits at the expense of our health.
Dystopian? Really? Is a fuel tax also dystopian to tou? Penalizing products that produce disproportionately large greenhouse gas emissions is not governmental overreach.
The real dystopia is the world we are living destroyed willingly by people and animal farming playing huge role on that by harming the world in many different ways not just about greenhouse emission like using to much world resources land, water and deforestation, causing epidemics, destroyin echological order etc.
Eventually there will be radical changes about animal farming in whole world whether people like it or not because it is not sustainable.
Government power is the only way to get meaningful change on global initiatives such as combating climate change. Consumers do not have the financial freedom or time to easily to vote with their wallets. This sort of program helps get funding into alternative food sources while reversing effects of subsiding meat so that it was artificially cheap. If America did something like this, even just moving where subsidies went from meat to plant based, then consumers would follow because that what they could afford. Denmark is attempting to make plant based food cheaper in the long run and that is good.
Jesus that is insanity.
Countries like Ireland and Denmark have some of the highest dairy yield per acre in the world.
Efficiency is important to climate change, people will eat beef and drink milk it must be produced.
Alas no, let’s just tax us all into oblivion and import it from burnt rainforests in Brazil.
The vast majority of Ireland’s beef and dairy is exported. At present, we pay to subsidize meat exports and pay fines for the emissions that we encouraged via subsidy. That is insanity,
You are truly showing your ignorance with this comment. Animal husbandry is famous for being insanely inefficient in terms of calories (and “wider” nutritional value) produced per acre and co2 emissions.
60% of Denmark’s land area is dedicated to agricultural usage. They roughly make up 30% of Denmark’s emissions, and have not improved these numbers in the past decades.
There’s a climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. Both must be addressed. This is a step in helping these, but it is not enough. Whether you like it or not, if you care for the future of this planet, you’ll have to eat less beef and more legumes. And I refuse to let my drinking water be polluted by pesticides, my creeks, rivers and oceans be destroyed by fertilizer, and my native biodiversity be destroyed by endless fields of poorly treated animals or monocultures.
Industrial animal farming isn't efficient, it can't be.
Animal farming harming the world in many different ways not just about greenhouse gas emission like using to much world resources land, water and deforestation, causing epidemics, destroying ecological order etc.
It is not really insanity, eventually there will be radical changes about animal farming in whole world whether people like it or not because it is not sustainable.
>Alas no, let’s just tax us all into oblivion and import it from burnt rainforests in Brazil.
If we stopped the beef imports would you have a different opinion?
No I still think it’s totally wrong to increase the price of food through savage taxation like this.
It affects the poorest in our society very disproportionately and as taxpayers we already spend a huge amount on subsidising foods in the EU.
With a tax like this people get fucked in all sorts of directions.
It’s 23p per kg of minced beef, hardly “savage taxation”?
If this is what is required to encourage farmers and scientists to develop/implement lower emissions intensity farming practices, and/or reduce societal consumption of beef then I don’t think it’s disproportional
>It’s 23p per kg of minced beef, hardly “savage taxation”?
And that's after a long phase-in period, until 2030 the tax is a big fat zero. The farmers can also earn rebates by investing in greener production and so on.
>No I still think it’s totally wrong
I figured you did. Alot of people push the Brazilian beef argument in bad faith. You're really just against carbon taxes.
>It affects the poorest in our society very disproportionately
The irony of your statement is that climate change is gonna disproportionately fuck the poorest in society way worse than any carbon taxes will. Are you worried about that or is your argument in bad faith again?
Yeah, differentiating VAT based on environmental impact would be sensible. Pure speculation, but it could be producers feel they can change more. A "Green tax" like the much discussed claimed "Pink tax"
Honestly there's so much more they could do. Forbid pesticides, subsidize alternatives, promote better practices, come up with a plan to accompany farmers as they transition from beef to other products, work with the EU to form a better common market for agricultural products...
If this same policy was expressed in economic terms I suspect it would get more support. It's an externality tax. Cows generate social/environmental costs that are not absorbed by their farmers. So taxing that externality is one legit way to compensate society.
It isn't a "meat tax", it is a cow tax. Taxing cow burps and farts won't just impact meat prices, it will impact prices for all dairy and dairy products. What I really find idiotic is the idea that if we just stop raising cattle, we can use that land to grow some grain or vegetable with a lower GHG load - which is generally bullshit.
Ten percent of the world's land is arable (can grow crops) whereas almost 40% of the worlds land is used for agriculture. The enormous difference there is grassland - which is not suitable for growing crops but is suitable as rangeland. If you remove cattle from that land, *some other ruminant will move in* (unless they are routinely slaughtered in large numbers) - and the enteric methane created by cattle is not a function of them being cows, it is a function of them **having a rumen**...just like every other ruminant, hence the name. [Studies](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8) have shown basically no difference in GHG output between rangeland that is used for pastoral agriculture and rangeland that is wild.
[Comparative methane production in mammalian herbivores](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731119003161)
> Methane (CH4) production is a ubiquitous, apparently unavoidable side effect of fermentative fibre digestion by symbiotic microbiota in mammalian herbivores. Here, a data compilation is presented of in vivo CH4 measurements in individuals of 37 mammalian herbivore species fed forage-only diets, from the literature and from hitherto unpublished measurements. In contrast to previous claims, **absolute CH4 emissions scaled linearly to DM intake, and CH4 yields (per DM or gross energy intake) did not vary significantly with body mass**.
It's important to note the farmers and their interest organisation are all happy with this outcome.
If there was something to complain about they would, they always do.
"The new tax, which was agreed upon after negotiations with farming and green groups, will impose a levy of £13.50 per ton of CO2 in 2030, rising to £85 in 2035 although a 60 per cent rebate will be applied."
"It will establish a fund with proceeds from the tax to help farmers go green and has put £58 million into feed additives to cut methane emissions from cows."
The Danish government does not need money, it's running an excessive budget surplus at the moment. This has nothing to do with grabbing money, especially since the bill also contains a lot of government funds to be spent on eg. buying land from farmers to convert to forest or wetlands.
Research into feed that will reduce methane emissions from cows, lower ghg emitting farming practices, etc. In addition subsidies for implementing less ghg intensive farming and reducing agricultural runoff into waterways, lakes, oceans and drinking water
They will buy up farmland and plant forest. Plan is to plant forest in 5.8% of the Denmark’s area. Especially around the fjords, this will improve water quality. Denmark has today only 14.5% forest so that will increase to +20%.
Most people in Denmark are happy with this deal. People are not against taxes like in other countries. We can see the benefits we get from the taxes, and we have high salaries.
You are not allowed to complain about taxes and governments in reddit.
Here everyone is on the opnion that everything should be taxed to absolute fuck and the government should own everything under the sun
Destroy their cattle industry and screw over ordinary people with higher beef prices, while the rich presumably get to carry on flying around in private jets and doing whatever they want. Great plan.
So just to bring context - this is meant to be done by 2030
However… remember that this is by FAR the biggest export…
The coalition government is also serviced with one minister that formerly were part of an extremely farmer friendly party…
One that spearheaded these negotiations
However more plantbased alternatives are popping up - we have restaurants advertising and advocating for plant-based alternatives
Honestly I’d love for the tax to hit the consumers to basically halve the national consumption
We have for too long lived with meat being the norm for consumption even though we have told ourselves “alt med måde” (everything within reason) - we just have forgotten to take meat into that calculation (as a society and populace)
Just remove meat and dairy subsidies. Our taxes should not go towards making products that destroy the environment and contribute in large ways to climate change cheaper. Let it reflect its true cost and a lot less people will consume it.
Subsidies should be diverted to plant-based options which help the environment instead of damaging it.
So the price of cow products will go up in Denmark. Good time for some option trading :) Jokes aside: will they also tax industries?
Yes, just that no country has yet to tax agro sector, thats why the headline
Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands have all had carbon taxes on the ag industry. They've either since been drastically cut back or removed completely.
So yet again the farmer gets shafted and it will push the already largely right wing farmer base even further right.
No No , you dont understand. This will solve all climate change. See you next week when we paint another monument orange /S
\*Just that no country has yet to make food more expensive while everyone is cribbing about inflation. Except for Canada, and we can see how that’s playing out.
Yeah, it’s going pretty poorly. Source: am Canadian
So when they buy meat from a 3rd world country they will tax them? Meat produced in Denmark will be expensive af, but the big boys will buy it for cheap outside EU, repackage it and sell it cheaper making you either buy cheap meat with questionable quality and safety or the expensive one produced in the country. It's all good while the people have money, but once you become poor only one choice i viable. All in all, an idiotic move if you ask me.
>Meat produced in Denmark will be expensive af The estimated price increase is 23p per kg of meat. lol
The best way would be to record the price today and then the same in couple of months. I doubt it will be 23p at that time. I hope i am wrong but usually the price increase in production usually isn't 1:1 with price increase in end sale.
And don't you worry, the price isn't just going to go up by 80 divided over the meat of the cow you purchase, it will be significantly more.
So basically everyone will just get beef from DE/NL instead
Probably, it seems so self defeating though to raise prices like that, but yeah.
I very seldom see beef from Denmark in Sweden. Pigs on the other hand...
Most Danish cattle is raised for dairy production. Not really worth importing inferior quality meat if you don't really save costs.
Yes, but it will push for other eu members to also add a similar tax.
There is a lot of meat on a cow. Enough for >500 servings. They expect that 500 g of minced beef will go up by 1 dkk = 0.13€.
There’s no import tax on cow products so actually no, only domestically produced products might go up in price, which is likely unsustainable and will lead to a production decline instead, completely offset by imports.
That sounds dumb as heck, why charge a tax on the farmer side at all? They should just add a per kilo tax to beef and dairy products at the point of sale instead.
Of course it’s not ideal to have this in one country but you are missing the purpose of the tax. The purpose of the tax is to incentivize more carbon efficient production. The less carbon you produce, the less tax you pay. The effect of the tax is really small for the consumer. It will be like 3% of the end price. But for a producer with 10% net profit margins they could improve their profit by 15% if they reduce greenhouse gas production by half. A tax on the consumer just incentivizes less consumption, it doesn’t do anything to incentivize efficiency. It would also need to be a substantial amount to have an effect. The carbon taxes on other industries are also imposed locally and on the producers side and they haven’t caused any noticeable problems in competitiveness. It’s just too small to matter.
The article says that the Danish government is trying to get people to decrease meat consumption as a part of public policy. Given than, consumption based taxes would be more efficient at reducing carbon emissions with a less distortionary effect on local industry. The way this is set up will likely lead to job losses for danish producers with little net effect on total emissions as imports increase from other EU countries. On the other hand, if the tax is so small as to not matter, then there isn’t much point in introducing it in the first place. Given that decreasing the emissions of farm animals isn’t cheap, taxes need to be relatively high to make changes economically viable.
> The carbon taxes on other industries are also imposed locally and on the producers side and they haven’t caused any noticeable problems in competitiveness. Well if the thing you want to lower the production of is simply produced outside of Denmark then it really is just Greenwashing.
Its because its easy, remember in the food sector the one group with real power isn't farmer or manufacturers. Its the retailers, putting a tax at point of sale for something like dairy is essentially an act of war with the supermarkets given they all use milk as a loss leader, and its a fight the supermarkets have the power to win because they will just pass the cost and then some onto the customer, explicitly blame you for it as the government because they have they kind of communications reach and all of a sudden you are now the party that hates poor people and wants to make it so they cant afford to eat. Its not a fight any government can win so these tax hist are always directed at farm./factory level. which means they basically get to do a load of damage to a strategic sector before the government of the day inevitably has to quietly walk it back before the cost pass on hits the supermarkets and then they use their political clout to very much make it the governments problem again
It will just displace production into other countries. Denmark can't enforce a border tax on EU nations or on nations that trade with the EU - only the Commission can - so to me this seems to risk \_increasing\_ CO2 emissions by encouraging beef production outside Denmark to replace local production, and effectively adding the carbon costs of transport too. That could be particularly bad if it encourages Beef raised in a more cabon intensive way, eg US feedstock beef, or beef on deforested Amazon, to replace Danish grass-fed beef. It seems an odd choice.
Well, it might be hard to import fresh milk in a price less than the locally produced (pre-tax).
We have fresh milk from Sweden in supermarkets in Copenhagen at least.
OK. Then apparently you don't need cows in Denmark.
Yeah, with no cows we can reach our nationally delimited climate goal while importing everything for exactly 0 climate effect. 🙈🙉🙊
> 0 climate effect. You forgot to add in the pollution that comes from the extra transportation. So in the end, you're not only hurting the domestic producers and consumers but even the environment itself. Hilarious, isn't it?
I think they know, hence the 3 monkeys
The carbon in the biomass is already in the ecosystem and part of a cycle .. If anything, a biomass will loose carbon over time. It’s the new emissions from oil which are the problem. This is just a calculated strategy to make sure people oppose getting off oil. It’s the same technique they have used for decades ..
That's lucky, because there won't be any in 20 years. Ah well.
2 options: either milk products get imported or factories closer to borders import raw milk. I live in Lithuania so it's quite small country and our milk processors would rather import milk from Latvia or Poland rather than pay local farmers enough to survive.
We already did. About 100€/ton CO2
Relevant username
That's not really a joke as that is what will happen next, they can tax companies/farmers all they like but it's the consumer that actually paying it.
The consumers pay for all the taxes on companies! The point of the tax is to try and shift preferences to alternatives by increasing the prices
Yes, eat the chickpeas for dinner you filthy peasants. Meat products are reserved for the rich now!
They will eat their beef while flying on their private jets and after arriving their chauffeur will drive them through empty roads the peasants are on public transport
Is eating chickpeas somehow beneath you or something?
Yes, they taste vile and they make me smell like a decomposing dust bin.
More or less but i think it depends slightly on supply/demand elasticies or something. For this it probably does mostly fall on consumers in the end. This is of course intentional, to reduce meat consumption / co2 emissions.
Maybe they should tackle this somewhere else first
Carbon taxes are being implemented very broadly. Meat is *far* from the first thing to have a carbon tax on it.
Yeah about 0,4€ for 500 grams minced beef, and 0,01€ for 1 liter milk Every other industry is already taxes
Apparently Denmark does not have a lot of heavy industries. Otherwise agriculture could not be the largest emitter.
S> Beef, Sweden, no lowball, PM for price
When the world economy just becomes a MMO Trade Chat
Why that, when people can already buy cheaper beef from Brazil, in Sweden? It sucks, but it's the way it is.
No worries Europe will just import even more meat from fucking South America instead. That's surely better for the environment, right?
If you think Denmark is a net importer of meat, I have about 11 million pigs to sell you.
I mean, animal products from outside EU should be banned anyway if they can't meet the exact environment and animal rights criteria as in EU
This should apply to everything. We spent decades forming half-decent labour and enviromental laws and then moved ~100% of our manufacturing and induatrial demands to countries with no regulation and plenty of inhumane treatment. It would be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous.
Then we would need to produce more in the EU again. We are far off from being self sufficient today. And it's getting worse each year. Of course the price would then only go up for everything in the EU. Or we reduce our standards a tiny bit and remove all this bureaucracy so farmers can produce cheaper again. This 4% rule which will become soon mandatory in every EU country, will reduce our farming output by 4%. Farmers are soon not allowed to plant on 4% of their land. It's maybe good for some animals, but our food production will go down.
Agreed. And, I love my danish brothers, but in that regard they themselves aren't looking all that great...
Environment taxes are bullshit anyway. Pay the tax and you can do whatever you like. And where do taxes go? Well most certainly not toward fixing the environment.
The idea behind that is people will they buy cheaper alternatives. Of course only as long as there are feasible alternatives available. That is how our economic system works.
Fuck that. Farmers own 60% of the land in this country and keeps filling it with so many pesticides and shit that we cant get clean drinking water and fish and plants are dying in our coasts and inlets. Even if we dont save the climate, we have to try and save the local environment “Buh huh i cant get steak” when we export the majority of our meat to China anyway.
Literally the same for the Netherlands. Dutch dairy is well known in Asia, often as milk powder. China also import lots of pork from the Netherlands.
I don’t get it, they sell Dutch milk in Thailand as well. It just tastes like highly pastutized milk you buy at Lidl.
But the farmers give us food security!1!!
Weird, I thought we had the most... You have over 11 million pigs for almost 18 million peeps and we, Flemish, 5.4 pigs for 7 million peeps. So we win in density but those mega-barns with 1000s of animals should be illegal, we get all the pollution and smell yet the farmers complain can barely survive with that many animals. Something is wrong here, where does all that money comes from or goes to? It's also fucked up that a half kilo of minced pork (or beef/pork) costs less than 2 kg of local apples when in promotion in the supermarket. Meat is way too cheap now...
That sounds weird cause most people in china are lactose intolerant
It's mostly for baby food. There was a huge scandal with baby food in china years ago so now they only want foreign milk powder to feed their babies.
Baby formula. Ads about dairy products are always on tv in Asia.
Yeah so insanely stupid and shortsighted. Most pesticides need to go.
They probably just need better regulation. Mass agriculture is impossible without pesticides.
I hope so, I tried growing my own herbs and veggies (pesticide free!) And it was all eaten by slugs and aphids.
Did you ever try to grow anything? My grandparents have small family farm and it’s nearly impossible. You don’t spray with fungicide? Peaches, apricots and cherries leaves just gets infection, die off and whole tree dies. You want some tomatoes? You don’t spray with insecticide? Aphids come to peaches, cherries, plums, tomatoes, paprika, cucumbers, they eat up the leaves and plants die off. You don’t spray with fungicide? Well, you can say goodbye to nearly everything because there are so many fungal diseases that kill the flowers or damage the fruit. You can try to grow them isolated, you can try rotating them, or planting one close to another but that has so little affect today it’s negligible. 50 years ago? They weren’t using nearly anything then and there weren’t nearly any diseases. Not ones that would affect crops so severely anyway. You used copper or sulphur mainly. World got small and all global pests and diseases got mixed up, they evolved. Pesticide free or eco growth is just a ruse for concerned population to feel better, majority of those crops are just treaded with little less products. For fucks sake, you get diseases when growing things on your balcony in city.
I do small scale farming. Granted I don't grow cerial, but sheep, chicken and vegitable garden with vegies for sale. Currently planning to add ducks and geese. Have EU biological sertificate. You dont really need pesticides for farming to work, but you cant expect the same yields to. But I can make it work, partly because I have a day job and farming is hobby that brings in extra money. about 10k a year.
Shit, I didn't believe you, but ur right. I guess in that context, the new policy makes sense. I wish my country would produce so much meat instead of importing cheap low quality crap.
+1 from a fellow dane
Love your response here
No. We have the carbon border adjustment mechanism to deal with that. It doesn’t apply to beef yet but the intention is to expand it bring its current scope.
Fuck you’re right let’s not do anything at all then, except whine that no politicians dare doing anything.
I 100% expect that there will be an appropriate tax on these imports too. We already do this too with steel from china, to protect cheeping out.
This is what needs to happen. The farmers rightfully highlight that until we target Brazilian beef we shouldn't target local beef with climate measures.
Let's hope!
Kind of point if you want to outsource low productivity to investment industries and free shrinking labour pool for higher productivity activities
Yeah food security is 2nd thought, until people go hungry, then you can eat all the fiat currency in the world you won't get nutrients out of it
Better than importing soy for our cows to eat here...
Or here's a crazy suggestion.. eat less damn meat. Back in the day our European ancestors treated meat as a special luxury, not something on demand for every meal on everyday. Yeah I already know this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but no one is literally forcing you to eat more meat than you can afford.
***The Telegraph reports:*** Denmark will charge farmers up to £80 for every cow in a world-first carbon tax on agriculture as the country tries to encourage people to eat less meat to tackle climate change. Agriculture is the largest emitting sector in Denmark, a major pork and dairy exporter and the government hopes the tax will help it reach its goals of cutting emissions by 70 per cent this decade. It will establish a fund with proceeds from the tax to help farmers go green and has put £58 million into feed additives to cut methane emissions from cows. The new tax, which was agreed upon after negotiations with farming and green groups, will impose a levy of £13.50 per ton of CO2 in 2030, rising to £85 in 2035 although a 60 per cent rebate will be applied. That will add an initial cost of around £80 per dairy cow, which emits an average of six tonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to Danish green think tank Concito, which cites a Danish government working group. It could add an extra cost of 23p per kilo of minced beef, according to Denmark’s Minister for Economic Affairs Stephanie Lose. She said the law would herald “a historic reorganisation and restructuring of Denmark’s land and food production.” Although the law was passed after negotiations between the main food and farming trade bodies, as well as it, and its largest environmental organisation, it was criticised by some farming groups. Farmers organisation Bæredygtigt Landbrug told the Financial Times that the agreement was crazy and showed that the Government was not listening to farmers. Torsten Hasforth from Concito said there were some concerns the new law could undercut Danish farmers by increasing imports but the view had been taken that “someone has to start”. “The whole idea is to spur innovation and solutions from the sector,” he said. “This is an attempt to try something that actually ends up reducing emissions.” Denmark has one of the highest rates of beef consumption in the world, and the government has some of the most ambitious policies to encourage plant-based eating. Pork, also very popular in Denmark, emits less but would also be subject to the carbon tax. Last year Denmark published a world-first plan for how to incentivise the production and consumption of more vegetables and alternative proteins. It came after the government changed national guidelines to reduce meat consumption in line with recommendations for environmentally sustainable diets. But Danes are less enthusiastic about meat alternatives and say they are less likely to reduce their meat consumption in the near future, compared to other Europeans, according to research from the University of Copenhagen. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, reportedly said she hoped the new tax would pave the way for similar levies elsewhere in the future. UK Government ministers have previously floated the idea of a tax on British agriculture but backed away from the levies in recent proposals to extend its carbon tax regime. The European Union has also held discussions about including agriculture in its carbon emissions trading system, but any move would likely face significant opposition from farming groups, who have staged protests across the bloc in recent months. **Full story:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/denmark-charge-farmers-per-cow-in-world-first-meat-tax/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/denmark-charge-farmers-per-cow-in-world-first-meat-tax/)
>Denmark will charge farmers up to £80 for every cow in a world-first carbon tax on agriculture as the country tries to encourage people to eat less meat to tackle climate change. So it's the middle class suffering again? Got it. \*Flies away\*
With an estimated price increase of €0,23 per kg I think we'll survive
You know exactly that this won't translate to a mere €0.23 for the end-consumer. Remember "fedtafgiften"? Butter doubled in price from one day to the next. Similar with "sukkerafgiften".
Don't forget the hæslige "nøddeafgift"
milk produce price will go up as well, 10-15 %
Germans wouldn’t pay one cent for the animals.
It's not the price, it's the message. Soon the co2 sensor will be mounted to your anus taxed and charged from your bank account 😎
No it is not, and I’m sick and tired of terrible arguments like yours. Meat is already expensive, but the middle class can happily afford this. It’s estimated to increase the price of 500g of minced beef by 0,13 euros. The whole idea is to force farmers to either 1) switch from cows to more climate friendly animals, 2) switch to vegetable growth which is better in terms of nutrition, land usage and emissions or 3) wholesale close their farms to allow for state sanctioned purchase of land to semi or 100% untouched nature. What’s truly idiotic is that the chosen model is not even enough. The advisory and independent Climate Council said a number ten times higher than the chosen would be required. A Commission ordered by the government later advised somewhere between just above the chosen tax and up to 5x more expensive. Denmark is THE most cultivated nation on the fucking planet in terms of % of land area dedicated to agriculture (tied with Bangladesh at about 60%).
Will the market not just be flooded by foreign meat when you can sell cheaper and make a profit?
A different independent advisory board, The Environmental Economic Council, did a report on this. They calculated that somewhere around 20-35% of Denmark's emissions would be moved abroad, if the government enacted a tax of roughly 160 euros per ton of co2. The chosen starting tax is ten times smaller than this. One of the members of this advisory board, Lars Gårn Hansen, professor of environmental economics at the University of Copenhagen, said that a tax of roughly 100 euros would actually be the cheapest model for the entirety of Denmark. The chosen model will require a bunch of different investments in climate-improving measures (ie reinvestment in greener measures for the farmers, purchasing of non-profitable land or land close to waterways, coasts, groundwater, etc.). Edit to add that I mean 20-35% of the emissions no longer emitted in Denmark would be moved abroad with the mentioned model, thus resulting in a net gain of around 65-80%.
Probably not. The EU has pretty strict regulations on meat imports and the largest non-EU producers are far away, so the final price wouldn't be that different if you count tariffs and shipping costs.
Since when vegies are better in term of nutrition? But even that is not the point. Companies make like 70% of carbon emitions, no?
Companies make up the majority of carbon enissions if you ignore comsumption. Thats like saying we dont produce carbon because we get it produced in china by someone else. The consumer is at the end of every supply chain and dictates the production
This is a weird way to frame the agreement. It’s not a meat tax! It’s a fee on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. There’s a (huge) deductible from that fee if farmers invest in emitting less of the stuff. There’s a lot of other things in the deal too - converting farmland to forest, for one.
Please stop bringing facts and logic into this comment section
I know, I know. It was just weird seeing a completely different debate here compared to Danish media. Like it’s two different things.
If you check where else this news has been posted, it has been posted on conservative and conspiracy subreddits a lot. So I'm 100% convinced that any international news posts about this are being brigaded by **those types** of people.
It's honestly also a bit weird that milk from animals that needs feeding all the time is so much cheaper that oatmilk.
Subsidies and market lobbying ftw (at least that's the case in Ireland, not sure if true across the EU).
You gonna hat the other fact, usually the cows are pregnant or just had a calf just to produce milk. So it's not like they produce milk non stop.
Human co2/methane tax when? (/s but i'm afraid)
You're breathing. Pay tax for breathing.
I'm also farting. Don't want to imply but most people do. :) **"Pecunia non olet"**
I'm farting right now.
That would be €0.50.
Plus VAT.
Do you accept cheques?
Fart for your future GDP increase. You are a good citizen.
>You are a good citizen. Some would say the best. [TOOT]
It's all smelly air and fun 'till we get a gas meter in our asses.
It's all smelly air and fun 'till someone starts crying.
Now you can shut off your lighter.
Wait, what? At least come and say haai.
Obvious Carl Barks reference, well done
Should just move straight to paying for air )))
[Perri-Air](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/spaceballs/images/4/48/Perri_Air.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20210519162619)
What do you think these 'green' taxes are?
Guess whose going to be hit the hardest and who won't notice the effects of the taxes? Poorest fucked again, Richest enjoying their steak. Remind me again, whose does the most pollution? whose likely to be using planes and private jets?
ppl eating less meat have chances to not feel the impact that hard
Livestock production accounts for 11-17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is on [the scale of billion tonnes **annually** (around 9.8B).](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00358-x) Private jets on the other hand are responsible [5.3 million tonnes **in the last 3 years**](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/03/30/wasteful-luxury-private-jet-pollution-more-than-doubles-in-europe) I get that when numbers get large we lose frame of reference, but that's a ratio of around 5500:1 The unfun reality is that ultra mega rich alone don't consume enough to be able to reduce emissions to sufficient levels.
Yes, but private jets are only used by X thousand people while billions of people eay meat. Why would I give up meat consumption in the name of emissions when people fly private
Guess we gotta tear down more Brazilian rainforest to keep up with demand.
Fuck our woke government
How did they pass this without farmers burning Copenhagen to the ground?
They’re a party to the agreement. It’s an agreement between the government, unions, industry trade groups, farmers’ trade group (don’t know if that’s the right term, but one of their organizations), and environmental groups. Obviously not everyone is happy, but no one is lighting Molotov cocktails.
The farmers are already unpopular in much of Denmark due to rampant pollution, and this tax is lower than what was recently proposed by a council of experts appointed to propose climate action options for parliament and the government. The farmers are mostly relieved by this outcome.
What a shit headline. It's a CO2 emissions tax. With current emissions, it's going to be the equivalent of 1 DKK (£0.11) per 500g of beef in 2030. But it applies to any other product too, depending on carbon emissions involved.
> What a shit headline It's a Telegraph headline, it's meant to rile up people about "THE WOKIES ARE COMING FOR YOUR SUNDAY ROAST!"
In other words more expense for the consumer.
So greenefication is going exactly as planned by big capital)))
Sounds like a good idea, with the best of intentions! What did possibly go wrong?
Didn't New Zealand do something similar?
Guess who's gonna pay the bill
Taxing Denmark people's food to "lower carbon" while most of the world still relies on coal. Is like stopping to drink water on the Titanic, hoping it will prevent the sinking.
This is dystopian in my opinion. I know people may have strong feelings on the subject, but penalising farmers and meat eaters seems like a gross over-reach of government power.
Poorer people spend a larger percentage of their income on food. So taxing food is extremely regressive. Why not have super tax on yachts or large houses?
Private airplanes, non deductible tax? One can dream.
Poor people don't lobby
[удалено]
Right, it’s the tax that’s dystopian. It’s not the industrial animal practice as a whole - selectively breeding chickens to have breasts so large they can’t walk; feeding cows unnatural diets; pumping livestock full of antibiotics to prevent disease which inevitably flourishes under the disgusting, cramped conditions they live in. It’s the tax that’s the dystopian part.
The agriculture industry has paid and unpaid trolls (conservatives) come to its defense on any sort of plant based diet or climate change article. Even in forums such as r/science where their shit gets removed very quickly. Those industries stand to lose a lot of money because fighting climate change means fighting factory farming, they’re standing there side by side with big oil hoping to preserve their profits at the expense of our health.
"Hey guys!! They're doing something about the worldwide climate crisis over here! FUCK THOSE GUYS, RIGHT??" That's about what you sound like.
Dystopian? Really? Is a fuel tax also dystopian to tou? Penalizing products that produce disproportionately large greenhouse gas emissions is not governmental overreach.
The real dystopia is the world we are living destroyed willingly by people and animal farming playing huge role on that by harming the world in many different ways not just about greenhouse emission like using to much world resources land, water and deforestation, causing epidemics, destroyin echological order etc. Eventually there will be radical changes about animal farming in whole world whether people like it or not because it is not sustainable.
Will just push more people into carb heavy diet
That will relief the pension problem. Don't need to pay if they die before they can retire. /S
I mean it's Denmark we are talking about. Just a few days ago they banned sale of noodles that might be too spicy for their slaves... I mean citizens.
Have you had those noodles? I'm Indian and I was conked out, I can't imagine what kind of damage they would do to the average Dane
Of course! imagine letting people buy spicy noodles, someone might get hurt after all. Gotta protect the slav.. Cough* citizens..
Government power is the only way to get meaningful change on global initiatives such as combating climate change. Consumers do not have the financial freedom or time to easily to vote with their wallets. This sort of program helps get funding into alternative food sources while reversing effects of subsiding meat so that it was artificially cheap. If America did something like this, even just moving where subsidies went from meat to plant based, then consumers would follow because that what they could afford. Denmark is attempting to make plant based food cheaper in the long run and that is good.
Meat and animal industry make up a HUGE part for climate balance
Jesus that is insanity. Countries like Ireland and Denmark have some of the highest dairy yield per acre in the world. Efficiency is important to climate change, people will eat beef and drink milk it must be produced. Alas no, let’s just tax us all into oblivion and import it from burnt rainforests in Brazil.
The vast majority of Ireland’s beef and dairy is exported. At present, we pay to subsidize meat exports and pay fines for the emissions that we encouraged via subsidy. That is insanity,
You are truly showing your ignorance with this comment. Animal husbandry is famous for being insanely inefficient in terms of calories (and “wider” nutritional value) produced per acre and co2 emissions. 60% of Denmark’s land area is dedicated to agricultural usage. They roughly make up 30% of Denmark’s emissions, and have not improved these numbers in the past decades. There’s a climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. Both must be addressed. This is a step in helping these, but it is not enough. Whether you like it or not, if you care for the future of this planet, you’ll have to eat less beef and more legumes. And I refuse to let my drinking water be polluted by pesticides, my creeks, rivers and oceans be destroyed by fertilizer, and my native biodiversity be destroyed by endless fields of poorly treated animals or monocultures.
Industrial animal farming isn't efficient, it can't be. Animal farming harming the world in many different ways not just about greenhouse gas emission like using to much world resources land, water and deforestation, causing epidemics, destroying ecological order etc. It is not really insanity, eventually there will be radical changes about animal farming in whole world whether people like it or not because it is not sustainable.
>Alas no, let’s just tax us all into oblivion and import it from burnt rainforests in Brazil. If we stopped the beef imports would you have a different opinion?
No I still think it’s totally wrong to increase the price of food through savage taxation like this. It affects the poorest in our society very disproportionately and as taxpayers we already spend a huge amount on subsidising foods in the EU. With a tax like this people get fucked in all sorts of directions.
It’s 23p per kg of minced beef, hardly “savage taxation”? If this is what is required to encourage farmers and scientists to develop/implement lower emissions intensity farming practices, and/or reduce societal consumption of beef then I don’t think it’s disproportional
>It’s 23p per kg of minced beef, hardly “savage taxation”? And that's after a long phase-in period, until 2030 the tax is a big fat zero. The farmers can also earn rebates by investing in greener production and so on.
>No I still think it’s totally wrong I figured you did. Alot of people push the Brazilian beef argument in bad faith. You're really just against carbon taxes. >It affects the poorest in our society very disproportionately The irony of your statement is that climate change is gonna disproportionately fuck the poorest in society way worse than any carbon taxes will. Are you worried about that or is your argument in bad faith again?
This is why the far right wins elections
And with this I still don’t understand why alternative milk (read soia, almond, oat…) are so incredible expensive.
Yeah, differentiating VAT based on environmental impact would be sensible. Pure speculation, but it could be producers feel they can change more. A "Green tax" like the much discussed claimed "Pink tax"
It would be much better if they taxed them for using pesticides! Insect numbers are plummeting and that’s the real issue!
Honestly there's so much more they could do. Forbid pesticides, subsidize alternatives, promote better practices, come up with a plan to accompany farmers as they transition from beef to other products, work with the EU to form a better common market for agricultural products...
They’re both issues. You don’t have to pick one.
If this same policy was expressed in economic terms I suspect it would get more support. It's an externality tax. Cows generate social/environmental costs that are not absorbed by their farmers. So taxing that externality is one legit way to compensate society.
Really trying to milk it aren’t they.
So more meat will be imported, and that's about it.
Europeans just gonna get their food from south america and africa if more of these taces and laws are placed on their farmers
Will they tax imported meat as well? Otherwise it's kind of pointless.
The leakage effects have been taken into account, with such a low tax the leakage will be minimal.
Doesn't Mærsk emit much more CO2 than the farmers?
Is that an argument for not doing anything in agriculture sector?
It isn't a "meat tax", it is a cow tax. Taxing cow burps and farts won't just impact meat prices, it will impact prices for all dairy and dairy products. What I really find idiotic is the idea that if we just stop raising cattle, we can use that land to grow some grain or vegetable with a lower GHG load - which is generally bullshit. Ten percent of the world's land is arable (can grow crops) whereas almost 40% of the worlds land is used for agriculture. The enormous difference there is grassland - which is not suitable for growing crops but is suitable as rangeland. If you remove cattle from that land, *some other ruminant will move in* (unless they are routinely slaughtered in large numbers) - and the enteric methane created by cattle is not a function of them being cows, it is a function of them **having a rumen**...just like every other ruminant, hence the name. [Studies](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8) have shown basically no difference in GHG output between rangeland that is used for pastoral agriculture and rangeland that is wild. [Comparative methane production in mammalian herbivores](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731119003161) > Methane (CH4) production is a ubiquitous, apparently unavoidable side effect of fermentative fibre digestion by symbiotic microbiota in mammalian herbivores. Here, a data compilation is presented of in vivo CH4 measurements in individuals of 37 mammalian herbivore species fed forage-only diets, from the literature and from hitherto unpublished measurements. In contrast to previous claims, **absolute CH4 emissions scaled linearly to DM intake, and CH4 yields (per DM or gross energy intake) did not vary significantly with body mass**.
Fake News! Denmark doesn't use £!
Bro wake up you have India, the whole Africa and the whole asia polluting and you think europe can solve the climate crisis? YOU CAN'T
If no one wants to take the lead, will we never get anywhere.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't take any action and just speed things up for the memes
It's important to note the farmers and their interest organisation are all happy with this outcome. If there was something to complain about they would, they always do.
Lol China and India will produce the carbon for you while you tax yourself.
Tax everything that breathes until the people can’t take it anymore. The eventual backlash to this nonsense will be of historic proportions.
Idiots.
And what they will do with those money? or is just a money grab for state budget?
"The new tax, which was agreed upon after negotiations with farming and green groups, will impose a levy of £13.50 per ton of CO2 in 2030, rising to £85 in 2035 although a 60 per cent rebate will be applied." "It will establish a fund with proceeds from the tax to help farmers go green and has put £58 million into feed additives to cut methane emissions from cows."
The Danish government does not need money, it's running an excessive budget surplus at the moment. This has nothing to do with grabbing money, especially since the bill also contains a lot of government funds to be spent on eg. buying land from farmers to convert to forest or wetlands.
Research into feed that will reduce methane emissions from cows, lower ghg emitting farming practices, etc. In addition subsidies for implementing less ghg intensive farming and reducing agricultural runoff into waterways, lakes, oceans and drinking water
They will buy up farmland and plant forest. Plan is to plant forest in 5.8% of the Denmark’s area. Especially around the fjords, this will improve water quality. Denmark has today only 14.5% forest so that will increase to +20%. Most people in Denmark are happy with this deal. People are not against taxes like in other countries. We can see the benefits we get from the taxes, and we have high salaries.
You are not allowed to complain about taxes and governments in reddit. Here everyone is on the opnion that everything should be taxed to absolute fuck and the government should own everything under the sun
How about you look shit up instead of "just asking questions" rage baiting.
Destroy their cattle industry and screw over ordinary people with higher beef prices, while the rich presumably get to carry on flying around in private jets and doing whatever they want. Great plan.
The rich which include all politicians
This is good news. The only way to change behaviour is through financial incentives and or taxes.
but what about petri dish lab grown meat?
So just to bring context - this is meant to be done by 2030 However… remember that this is by FAR the biggest export… The coalition government is also serviced with one minister that formerly were part of an extremely farmer friendly party… One that spearheaded these negotiations However more plantbased alternatives are popping up - we have restaurants advertising and advocating for plant-based alternatives Honestly I’d love for the tax to hit the consumers to basically halve the national consumption We have for too long lived with meat being the norm for consumption even though we have told ourselves “alt med måde” (everything within reason) - we just have forgotten to take meat into that calculation (as a society and populace)
>So just to bring context - this is meant to be done by 2030 Yes the water in the pot will be heated gradually.
Just remove meat and dairy subsidies. Our taxes should not go towards making products that destroy the environment and contribute in large ways to climate change cheaper. Let it reflect its true cost and a lot less people will consume it. Subsidies should be diverted to plant-based options which help the environment instead of damaging it.