Can you tax a cow’s burps? New Zealand will be the first to try.
In a nation with seven times more livestock than people, taxing farmers for herds’ greenhouse gas emissions is a controversial proposal.
In this picturesque South Pacific country, it’s a recurring scene: Where grass grows, livestock graze.
New Zealand has seven times more residents on four legs than on two—5 million people to 26 million sheep and 10 million cows—and dairy, meat, and wool account for more than half the nation’s export revenue.
But this abundance comes with an environmental cost. Half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mostly as biological methane and nitrous oxide from livestock burps, urine, and manure.
So last month, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled a plan for New Zealand’s farmers to pay new taxes based on calculations of their herds’ emissions. The money raised by the tax would be returned to the ag industry for research, technology,
