News Feature: Alternative Proteins to win as meat makers taxed
Meat companies may face a USD 11 Billion carbon tax bill providing a fillip to alternative proteins industry.
Who knew that farming meat emits more greenhouse gases than the transportation sector. All the while, we thought that the number 1 cause of pollution is our car? Jeremy Coller, the Founder of FAIRR said, "There's increasing consensus that we cannot achieve the Paris Climate Agreement unless we deal with factory farming – a sector emitting more greenhouse gases than all the world's planes, trains, and cars put together.
With the current trend to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, the meat sector is looking at being taxed around $11 Billion by 2050. The analysis targets 40 leading meat farming companies. Hopefully, this taxation proposal gathers enough momentum so that policymakers can push its implementation as soon as possible. Why? Because according to analysis, this meat tax would ripple effects:
First, it will drastically decrease livestock emissions contributing to lesser greenhouse gases. Second, It will benefit local fruit and vegetable farmers. Third, it will also open opportunities for small startup companies like Redefine Meat to introduce their alternative proteins vegetable 3D printed 'Alt-Meat' (coined from alternative meat) to the global market. Looking at the environmental impact of meat cost $20 trillion worth of investment risk. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are now looking into the healthier option: by planting their small vegetable gardens, choosing healthier foods, and overall just being health conscious.
For the local shopper, this taxation of meat carbon might not be a big deal but on the larger scale of things, this might just be the "the big deal" that we have been waiting for that can solve the problem of global warming. This can be the gateway to putting more alternative protein on the plates in households all over the world. This will reduce cruelty to animals on a massive scale.
(Source: https://www.fairr.org/article/meat-companies-may-face-11bn-carbon-tax-bill/)