Polluter pays: Developing nations call for ‘meat tax’ on high-income countries

If wealthy nations won’t reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from industrial livestock sector voluntarily, they must pay for the climate damage it causes by way of a GHG emission pricing mechanism. This is what 28 low-income countries across Africa and Pacific demanded in the just concluded COP30, from high-income countries, that see overconsumption of meat. 

Countries like Nigeria, Fiji, Uganda, Chad, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, among others signed a ‘Belém Declaration on GHG Emission Pricing on Agri-Food Systems’. It called on high-income countries and major economies, including the European Union commission, 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states and China, to introduce GHG pricing mechanisms in their industrial meat production. 

These countries — from Fiji to Vanuatu, and from Kiribati to Papua New Guinea — together represent roughly 14 million people who are already experiencing the daily impacts of climate change.