“Dear Prime Minister, Why has agriculture been exempted from the carbon tax? Without the tax, high-emitting sectors such as animal agriculture (particularly beef) are effectively continuing to be subsidised. The reason is that most of their massive environmental costs are being externalised, rather than being paid by the consumers of the relevant products. Animal agriculture has been by far the biggest cause of land clearing in this country, largely due to the grossly and inherently inefficient nature of animals as a food source. If you combine the carbon dioxide emissions and loss of sequestration from that land clearing with the massive emissions of methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse pollutants involved in the sector, you have a huge contributor to global warming that is free to continue on its present course. We should be creating price signals to encourage consumers to purchase alternatives that are significantly more climate-friendly. Thank you.”
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Paul Mahony
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