New Zealand: farmers anger over a tax on gases emitted by cattle

Herd of dairy cows in the central plateau region of New Zealand.

© Richard Tindiller / RFI

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In its climate change plan, the New Zealand government announced a few weeks ago a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from livestock burps and farts.

A sensitive subject in a country where the agricultural sector represents more than half of exports.

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If the methane expelled by cattle burping is less abundant and more volatile in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it interferes more powerfully with climate change.

According to scientists, since the industrial revolution, methane has been responsible for about 30% of global warming, even though it only composes a fraction of the greenhouse gas.

Anxious to better control the environmental footprint of its six million cows and 26 million sheep, the New Zealand government therefore wants to introduce a tax on methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Initially, the plan provided for a tax proportional to the emissions of the animals of each breeder.

Breeders for a total abandonment of the tax

Faced with the anger of the agricultural sector, the government has made new proposals, in particular to offset animal carbon emissions through forestry, which consists of planting on farms species that promote natural regeneration, in order to benefit from a tax. lower.

For the moment, the breeders remain on their position.

They are calling for the abandonment of this new tax which risks driving up prices and weakening the competitiveness of New Zealand's agricultural sector internationally.

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• New Zealand

• Environment

• Climate change

• Agriculture and Fishing