This Guardian article talks about reducing meat consumption and brings up the subject of taxing meat to reduce consumption. The article says that:
<< Ministers have shied away from calls for a “carbon tax” on red meat for not entirely illegitimate reasons; taxing food is toughest on low-income households, because they spend proportionately more of their income on it. >>
I disagree. The higher cost of meats does not force the low-income household to pay more because the household has alternative foods to eat. The household can eat a meat-free healthy diet. Or they can eat meat substitutes such as soy burgers. By taxing meats it would level the playing field so that meat substitutes, which tend to be more expensive, would be more affordable to consumers.
But the governments fail to use the whole taxation tool. Taxing meats achieves the goal I explained above. But what taxing authorities fail to do is incentivize the progress to goals. The goal should be to subsidize by paying the tax to the business to equalize the cost of the product to be incentivized.
Here is an example. The original product costs a dollar. The substitute costs $1.50. The original should have a $.25 tax to bring its cost up to $1.25. The substitute should be subsidized $.25 to bring its cost down to $1.25, the same as the original. The tax and subsidy would be phased out over time until both are eliminated.
A quote from this article:
<< … the actual reality of eating other things instead of meat can be surprisingly palatable. Progress may, in short, be easier than it sometimes sounds.
Eating habits are already changing, if not fast enough for climate scientists then faster than angry burger warriors suggest. One in eight Britons claim to be vegetarian or vegan and another one in five flexitarian, eating meat-free sometimes; and although meat consumption rose over the last decade the big rise was in chicken, not red meat. Going veggie for the sake of the planet, rather than the animals, might have sounded eccentric a generation ago but it barely raises a millennial eyebrow now. By the time generation Z are their age, counting dietary carbons may seem no stranger than counting calories. >>
