Denmark is going ahead with a carbon tax on agriculture – saying the legislation will be the first of its kind in the world.
A similar tax aimed at tackling emissions from livestock was recently scrapped by New Zealand.
Confirmation of the tax was reported after seven relevant bodies came to an agreement after negotiations.These parties included the government, farmer organisations, trade unions, industry, and environmental NGOs.
The Danish parliament is expected to formally approve the tax in August.
Levies and taxes on the agriculture industry have been proposed by numerous environmental advocates as tools to tackle climate change, as it is widely believed to account for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Some 159 countries committed to include food and agriculture in their national climate mitigation and adaptation plans at the UN Climate Summit last year.
Carbon tax
Commenting on the news in a statement sent to Vegan Food & Living, Maria Reumert Gjerding, President of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, said: “This is a historic compromise that sets a completely new direction for land use.
“The agreement will ensure significantly more forest, large wetlands and much more protected nature in Denmark and integrate nature, nitrogen and climate efforts.
“Despite major disagreements, we have managed to reach a compromise on a carbon tax that paves the way for a transformed food industry – also beyond 2030.”
Martin Lines, UK Arable farmer and CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, added that agriculture ‘can and must play a significant role’ when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, noting that the industry ‘has the potential to sequester carbon for others’. He added: “A carbon tax should be implemented across all industries, with agriculture taking an active part not only in emission reduction but also in leveraging the opportunities to be rewarded for carbon sequestration.”
A ‘landmark’ moveMeanwhile, Mark Howden, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University and a member of the Expert Panel on Livestock Methane, suggested that governments around the world should ‘take a close look at Denmark’s landmark agriculture emissions tax’. “The world can no longer afford to ignore the third of global emissions produced by the agri-food sector,” he added.
“The solutions needed to make a significant cut in agriculture’s climate footprint already exist – but financial incentives like the Danish tax could assist them being implemented at scale.
“This policy package looks like it can push down on greenhouse gas emissions efficiently at the same time as generating benefits for farmers and for biodiversity.
“Recirculating the proceeds of the tax into a transition support fund for the farm sector, if handled strategically with an appropriate research and development component, could generate a new wave of innovation and new opportunities.”
‘Truly historic’
The Finance Minister of Denmark, Nicolai Wammen, said: “Today is truly historic for Denmark. For the climate, for our nature and for Danish agriculture.”
He described the tax as an investment in the ‘future of our agricultural sector’, saying it was ‘initiating a transition with shared ambitions and goals – laying the tracks to what our country will look like in five, 10 and 20 years from now’.
Nicolai concluded: “We know that a CO2 tax model aligned across all sectors gives us the lowest societal costs in total.“What we have now done from industry sectors to agriculture shows us that an ambitious green transition is possible.”
Original source: https://www.veganfoodandliving.com
https://www.animalagricultureclimatechange.org/denmark-plant-based-plan/
