NZ plans to tax cow and sheep burps to tackle greenhouse gases

New Delhi: New Zealand has unveiled a plan to tax sheep and cattle burps in a bid to deal with the nation’s one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases.

The plan would make New Zealand the first nation to charge its farmers for the methane emissions from the animals they keep, according to the report. Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2).

New Zealand is home to just over five million people, along with around 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep,  which is adding that almost half of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.

Nation’s Climate Change Minister James Shaw said, “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 tax will be levied on farmers from 2025 under the new proposal. The plan also has incentives for them who will help reduce the emissions through feed additives, while planting trees on farms could be used to offset emissions, according to the report.

In November, last year’s COP26 environmental conference in Glasgow the US and the EU have agreed to cut the emission of the gas by 30 per cent by 2030. More than 100 countries, including New Zealand, have also signed up to the initiative.

Earlier New Zealand committed $1.9bn for initiatives to tackle climate change, which would be funded by an emissions trading system that taxed polluters.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, investors managing $14tn of assets urged the United Nations to create a global plan to make the agriculture sector sustainable.