In an apparent backdoor effort to tax meat, the burps and farts of cattle and sheep are set to be taxed by the leftist government of New Zealand in a bid to, they claim, save the world.
The left-wing Labour government of Jacinda Ardern has drafted proposals to levy taxes against farmers for the methane emissions produced by cows and sheep in what would be the world’s first green tax on livestock. [bold, links added]
“There is no question that we need to cut the amount of methane we are putting into the atmosphere, and an effective emissions pricing system for agriculture will play a key part in how we achieve that,” the government’s climate change minister James Shaw said per The Telegraph.
New Zealand, which is home to five million people, is a net exporter of meat, with approximately 10 million cows and 26 million sheep grazing on its pastures.
As a result, around half of the country’s emissions come from farming, mostly from the methane produced by the belching or flatulence of cows and sheep.
Previously, agriculture has been exempt from the government’s carbon emissions trading schemes.
Yet, despite the large livestock population, the Pacific Ocean island country only ranks 74th globally in terms of carbon emissions, accounting for just 0.09 percent of the world’s emissions, meaning that such a tax would likely have negligible impacts on supposedly man-made climate change.
However, the tax will likely serve to increase the cost of lamb and beef in New Zealand and in the countries to which the meat is exported, with farmers likely to pass on the added expense to consumers.
The draft proposal, which would come into effect by the year 2025, is set to be finalized by December.
The move from the socialist government comes amid a wider effort by governments and globalist institutions to push people away from meat.
The United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has also discussed levying border taxes on meat and dairy to fight climate change, they claim.
Institutions such as the World Economic Forum, which has long advocated for the consumption of bugs, recently called for the widespread adoption of veganism and the eating of “climate beneficial foods” such as seaweed and algae.
Read more at Breitbart
We are losing good farmland and soil at an alarming rate. Now a shortage of chemical fertilizer and they want to tax the natural fertilizer makers that prevents agriculture land turning into a desert. Stupidity beyond comprehension
I am a New Zealander. I am an omnivore. I fully intend to continue to eat meat as a part of my diet. I will pay the sheep and beef farmers whatever they need to charge for as long as I can afford the price. This whole COS is the result of hysterical climate change fanatics who are unable/unwilling to analyse the facts. They are FISI..! (Fully Indoctrinated Socialist Idiots)
Start taxing Stupidity and make those idiots pay the Lions Share
Remember one of the original motivations for starting the global warming movement was an excuse for new taxes. One of these is a tax on farts.
The Democrats want too tax everything from Big Macs to Hand Guns to finanance their little pet projects they tried to Tax Soda Pop in Seattle