A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change.
Pricing food according to its climate impacts could save half a million lives and one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions
Taxing greenhouse gas emissions from food production could save more emissions than are currently generated by global aviation, and lead to half a million fewer deaths from chronic diseases, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
The study, conducted by a team of researchers from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford and the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, is the first global analysis to estimate the impacts that levying emissions prices on food could have on greenhouse gas emissions and human health.
The findings show that about one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided in the year 2020 if emissions pricing of foods were to be implemented, more than the total current emissions from global aviation. However, the authors stress that due consideration would need to be given to ensuring such policies did not impact negatively on low income populations.
“Emissions pricing of foods would generate a much needed contribution of the food system to reducing the impacts of global climate change,” said Dr Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, who led the study. “We hope that’s something policymakers gathering this week at the Marrakech climate conference will take note of.”
Much of the emissions reduction would stem from higher prices and lower consumption of animal products, as their emissions are particularly high. The researchers found that beef would have to be 40% more expensive globally to pay for the climate damage caused by its production. The price of milk and other meats would need to increase by up to 20%, and the price of vegetable oils would also increase significantly. The researchers estimate that such price increases would result in around 10% lower consumption of food items that are high in emissions. “If you’d have to pay 40% more for your steak, you might choose to have it once a week instead of twice,” said Dr Springmann.
…
The results indicate that the emissions pricing of foods could, if appropriately designed, be a health-promoting climate-change mitigation policy in high-income, middle-income, and most low-income countries. Special policy attention would be needed in those low-income countries where a high fraction of the population is underweight, and possibly for low-income segments within countries.
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Read more: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/2016_11_Emissions
The abstract of the study;
Mitigation potential and global health impacts from emissions pricing of food commodities
Marco Springmann, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Sherman Robinson, Keith Wiebe, H. Charles J. Godfray, Mike Rayner & Peter Scarborough
The projected rise in food-related greenhouse gas emissions could seriously impede efforts to limit global warming to acceptable levels. Despite that, food production and consumption have long been excluded from climate policies, in part due to concerns about the potential impact on food security. Using a coupled agriculture and health modelling framework, we show that the global climate change mitigation potential of emissions pricing of food commodities could be substantial, and that levying greenhouse gas taxes on food commodities could, if appropriately designed, be a health-promoting climate policy in high-income countries, as well as in most low- and middle-income countries. Sparing food groups known to be beneficial for health from taxation, selectively compensating for income losses associated with tax-related price increases, and using a portion of tax revenues for health promotion are potential policy options that could help avert most of the negative health impacts experienced by vulnerable groups, whilst still promoting changes towards diets which are more environmentally sustainable.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3155.html
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity.
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You can’t depopulate the earth by saving lives, somebody has to die. You drive up the price of food and energy, paint a false narrative about deadly future heat in the face of upcoming cold, and let nature take it’s course.
Developing another system of Theft based on Fraud. Some group of Tyrants must have Ordered the Expansion of over reaching Government to kill the economy and starve the people.
Who is going to benefit from this? Government and Its’ employee Unions.
Who is going to be hurt by this? Everyone that hasn’t bought an exemption for themselves.
Think of the down range ripples throughout the economy;
Everyone has less money and more oppressive Government.
Taxing the heck out of protein rich foods would certainly go a long way toward making those pesky plebeians smaller and weaker. And of course we will continue to keep energy prices artificially high in order to keep killing off the elderly and the ill. Should help lead to the perfect society.
Food is too cheap….proceed.
I’ll sell you a tomato for 30 dollars, when you are only making 7 dollars an hour.
Potatoes are kept under lock and key, they are 100 dollars each.
You want a cheap burger? That’ll be a Thousand$$$s.
Sorry! Water has been banned, it has been determined to cause “Climate Change!”
First liberals wanted non-elite whites to adopt a pre-stone age, combustion-free lifestyle for ourselves while they continue jetting around in their private jets, muscle cars, and continue to enjoy a perfect inside climate in their mega-mansions. Now they want us to give up eating too?
Do we really need any more proof that liberalism is the entire system at war with the native American middle and working classes? Could this kind of outrage be why Trump won and Comrade Hillary lost?
Yes, exactly. We are very tired of being lectured to…are you listening, Hamilton cast members, NFL “knees”, Hollywood professional let’s pretend actors? When the likes of all those and world-leaders stop jetting everywhere, having others take care of their basic needs, frequently vacationing in luxury locations, then I just might listen to your message. Until then, you are simply hypocritical fools. I read a book many years ago set around 2050 and in it only the very rich and powerful ate “real” food…the rest of the world ate engineered items. Looks as though it wasn’t so far off the mark, if some have their way.
Seriously, what impact would a UK tax on meat have on actual global temperatures? Educated and qualified to professorship standards but as thick as a box of rocks.
That’s the idea! Hit the poorest among us in order to make the UN happy with their Socialist “Global Warming” ideology. This is why Populism is gaining strength and Globalism is on its way out….
I notice that every global warming theory ends with a proposal about how to take our money.
These idiots should go F themselves, early and often.
Insanity pure and simple. Food cost enough as it is. Fuck the UN.😎
Brilliant. Price food OUT OF RANGE for 95% of the consumers on the planet. Then issue Global Warming coloring books to help starving people pass the time. Dial M for Morons.
Their analysis ignores other healthy effects.
What if grain has the least climate impact, but causes the most diabetes, cancer and heart disease?
So now we will have more of those diseases as all other foods are taxed relatively more highly, thanks to these scientists who are only interested in virtue signaling around the issue-du-jour.
Actually, I think it’s a splendid idea. All you poor, uneducated, deplorable little people who vote for things like Brexit and Trump will starve to death, leaving just us wise folk on the electoral register. Fuel poverty alone isn’t getting rid of you quickly enough.
(do I need to say ‘sarc’?)
Well, my area has plenty of deer and small game and, I have a gun. As for fuel poverty, I learned how to siphon gas at a young age. :)<<< note the smiley face.
Yeah and shop at midnight auto supply for spare parts 😀
michael
Food is shit enough in the UK, so let’s make it more so by taxing it through the roof.
Good plan.
Morons with a mission
These folks are nucking futs. What a wonderful way to induce malnutrition and starvation. At least they’ll have a front row seat to all the glorious ways people respond when they have the joy of watching their children starve to death, if they were to actually try to implement such stupidity. Is Oxford handing out ID10T endorsements with their degrees these days?
The Money will be used to fuel Jets to fly around talking about Jet exhaust….
Soylent Green is PEOPLE, its PEOPLE! Taxed to death, rendered into edible wafers and fed back to the dying remnants.
The rich, of course, will still have steak and champagne. The rest of us need to understand that government knows what’s best for us and consider ourselves lucky to get their scraps and leftovers.
Remember folks, Tuesday is Soylent Green day. Bring your ration books.
Developing another system of Theft based on Fraud. Some group of Tyrants must have Ordered the Expansion of over reaching Government to kill the economy and starve the people.
Who is going to benefit from this? Government and Its’ employee Unions.
Who is going to be hurt by this? Everyone that hasn’t bought an exemption for themselves.
Think of the down range ripples throughout the economy;
Everyone has less money and more oppressive Government.
???
If this is a duplicate, where is my comment?
Inspector Morse would be disgusted with the lot of them.
If so, also need to tax all pro and college and high school sports teams,sports equipment makers, sports shoe makers and athletic wear makers for contributing to increasing CO2 output.
Please tell me the Brits aren’t going to be as stupid as American Democrats.
FAR too late for that wish, Dan.
Liberal is as Liberal does.
Jaw-dropping. Under my theory that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, you can register your objections with the corresponding author here. This was my response:
You probably should be nicer to the man than I was, but uncaring educated fools proposing this kind of unthinking damage to the poor angrifies my blood, and I lost my cool … hey, I’m a reformed cowboy, but I’m still a cowboy, what can I say.
w.
Sounds like you were being nice me… Much nicer than I would be.
Seems to me you said the right thing, in the right tone just by applying logic.
I guess that’s what’s missing from academia…basic logic.
Too bad there aren’t upvotes here, I’d give you 100+.
In short, they propose a policy of “Starve the Poor”.
If England experiments with this, they ought to start with Oxford. The people who proposed this should be sent on a mission to examine Venezuela.
I like that.
They should start by eliminating all meat, dairy and all animal products from their school.
And covert it to a socialist system. All students get the same grade based on the aggregate quality of their work, and all employees, from full professors to custodians get the same salary.
And none of them should drink fermented beer or wine. Or Carbonated drink of any kind. Or water (CO2 is used to stabilise the Ph of drinking water). Or decaffienated coffee. Or Milk from ‘farting cows’.
Just die of thirst. Hypocrites.
The elites still haven’t learned the lessons of the Brexit and Trump victories. Nor will they. Instead they will wonder why their center-left and center-right parties are on the margins of politics.