Methane tax for burping cows

Livestock farmers in Europe are up in arms as governments have proposed methane taxes on cows. In Ireland, a tax of €13 per cow is proposed whilst the Danes are going for a tougher regime of €80 a cow.

The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane (equivalent to 100 tonnes of CO2) a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of CO2 for an average car.

Agriculture accounts for 50% of the world's methane emissions, around 5% of total man made CO2 equivalent emissions.

The problem with environmental taxes is that industries can relocate to avoid them thus undermining their effectiveness and strengthening domestic opposition to their imposition. EU farmers argue that they will lose sales to farmers in eastern Europe and Latin America. This problem of "leakage" could in theory be overcome by taxing meat that arrives from countries without a methane tax. However, in practice this is difficult and costly to set up and run a scheme.

The best way round this is to impose a methane tax globally. Negotiating this would be tricky to say the least....