In a significant policy reversal, New Zealand’s centre-right government has announced it is scrapping a scheme to price greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, effectively shelving a so-called “burp tax”.
The government said new legislation will be introduced to parliament this month to remove the agriculture sector from a planned emissions pricing plan. “The government is committed to meeting our climate change obligations without shutting down Kiwi farms,” Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said. “It doesn’t make sense to send jobs and production overseas, while less carbon-efficient countries produce the food the world needs.”
New Zealand’s economy is heavily reliant on agriculture, with around 10 million cattle and 25 million sheep across the nation’s pastures. Nearly half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the agriculture sector, primarily from cattle burps and flatulence, as well as livestock urine. The previous centre-left Labour government, run by Jacinda Ardern had targeted the livestock industry in its drive to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. However, the plan to tax livestock emissions, announced in 2022, sparked widespread protests from farmers who feared it would hurt their livelihoods.
The new centre-right government, which took power late last year, said it would remove agriculture, animal processors and fertiliser companies from the emissions pricing scheme, scheduled to launch in 2025. Instead, the government aims to help farmers lower emissions through technology without reducing production or exports.
“A new ‘pastoral group’ would be set up to tackle biogenic methane emissions in the sector,” the agriculture minister added. While welcomed by farmers, the decision has drawn criticism from environmental groups. The Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick accused the government of “putting half of our emissions which come from agriculture into the industry-led too-hard basket”.
Greenpeace went further, claiming the government was “waging an all-out war on nature” and had “clearly signaled that the most polluting industries, industrial dairy, and new oil and gas exploration, are free to treat our atmosphere like an open sewer”. The scrapping of the “burp tax” comes as the government also announced plans to reverse a five-year ban on new oil and gas exploration, prompting thousands to protest in New Zealand’s major cities against the rollback of environmental regulations.
