Where To Find a Burp Tax

A reader once told the the New Yorker Magazine that the artist who drew their cover “…has the ‘ends’ mixed up.” He was referring to an image of a cow emitting methane from its rear. Instead, the burps are the problem.

Denmark has become increasingly concerned with those burps.

Cows and Methane

Cows burp a lot because of what they eat. Called the rumen, the front section of their four-part stomach is particularly adapted to processing tough to digest fiber-laden substances like grasses. One by-product of the process is hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas which then combine, make methane, and soon are burped into the world. Together, these burps nudge methane emissions skyward.

You can see that agriculture is a relatively substantial source of methane emissions:

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. With a large possible impact on climate because it is so good at retaining heat, methane’s Global Warning Potential (GWP) number is 25 while CO₂‘s (Carbon Dioxide) is 1. Or, we could just say that when we look at equivalent amounts, methane creates 25 times more warming than CO₂ during 100 years.

Denmark’s Cow Burps

The problem

Denmark’s pigs and cattle far outnumber the people that live there. Correspondingly, farms occupy approximately 60% of Denmark:

To make those numbers more meaningful, we can also see where:

The Solution

Denmark says it will start to tax cow burp methane by 2030. The downside for farmers is the 300 Danish kroner per ton tax (approximately $43) that will more than double in 2035. However, making farmers happier, the plan also includes a tax rebate.

Searching for methods of methane measurement, I can see why we need to wait for 2030. Currently, the science, ranging from satellite measurements using sprectrometers to cow breath is inexact. After dealing with the complexities, I wonder if Denmark will just use cow counts?

Actually, New Zealand did change its mind. With the arrival of a new government, New Zealand (5 million people/10 million cattle) abandoned its methane tax plan scheduled for 2025.

Their cattle emissions far exceed Denmark’s:

Our Bottom Line: Externalities

We wind up with a slew of negative externalities because of the methane produced by cow burps. Defined as a “side effect,” an externality represents the ripple of a decision or policy. Pollution can create negative externalities when it warms the earth while for positive externalities, we could cite the impact of vaccines that travel far beyond the people receiving them.

This xkcd cartoon displays the potential massive externalities from our pets and livestock:

From: xkcd

My sources and more: Thanks to the NY Times for reminding me it was time to return to cow burps. From there the BBC and WEF had the methane details while this website looked at satellite measurement and here, I got my Denmark stats. Finally, moving beyond, we can see why New Zealand scrapped its methane tax plan.

We should note that several of today’s sentences were from a past econlife.