Food production is responsible for more than 25 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, most of that due to livestock. Yet agriculture has long been excluded from national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Since it can be challenging to regulate the food production industry’s emissions from the supply side, a viable alternative may be passing on the environmental costs of food production to the consumer.

This strategy is intended to reduce the demand for foods with a large environmental impact while increasing the demand for more sustainable (and typically more affordable) food options. A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change suggests that if tax-adjusted food prices are based on the environmental impact of their production, then the environmental costs of agriculture could be substantially lowered. As a bonus, the money from the tax could be used to lower the cost of foods that are healthier and more environmentally friendly.

The authors of the paper used an environmental-economic analysis of greenhouse gas taxation of food products, embedding it within a health modeling framework. They use this analysis to assess the impact of potential changes on major world regions, including countries at all stages of economic development. The result is the first global analysis of the environmental and health impacts of a greenhouse gas tax on foods.