Denmark has announced a plan to impose the world’s first carbon tax on farmers and create an area of new forest the size of Dorset as it seeks to cut emissions to 30 per cent of 1990 levels by the end of the decade.
As other European governments such as Germany and France struggle to appease their agricultural lobbies, Copenhagen intends to introduce an ambitious package of reforms that will include €4.5 billion in “rewilding” subsidies and a CO₂ levy equivalent to €100 a year for each cow in the country.
“This is a historic change, because we are giving land back to nature for the first time in 200 years,” Stiig Markager, a professor of marine ecology at Aarhus University, told the public broadcaster DR. “It will cause a huge change in the landscape.”
While the relative importance of Denmark’s agricultural sector has declined to the point where it accounts for about 2 per cent of the workforce and a little over 1 per cent of GDP, the country remains one of the continent’s largest pork exporters and produces three times as much milk per capita as the European Union average.
If current trends continue, farming is forecast to make up 46 per cent of Denmark’s total CO₂ emissions by 2030.
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Nitrogen pollution from fertilisers also makes a significant contribution to the ecological collapse in its coastal waters, particularly in the Baltic Sea. One Danish marine scientist recently estimated that it could take as long as 400 years for the effects to be reversed.
The “green tripartite” plan was thrashed out over five months of negotiations between representatives of the government, the private sector and conservation groups.
The involvement of the farming lobby appears to have resulted in a more consensual approach than the strained relations that environmental measures have led to in other European states.
The scheme will be phased in from 2030 if it is approved by the Danish parliament. Its centrepiece is an effective tax rate of 120 Danish krone (£13.50) for every tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent that farmers’ livestock are estimated to emit, once deductions have been factored in.
From 2035 that sum will be more than doubled to 300 krone, although it will still be significantly lower than the CO₂ prices levied on some industrial companies.
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It also envisages a subsidy programme to create 618,000 acres (250,000 hectares) of forest, at least 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) of which must be left untouched by the forestry industry. The hope is that turning intensively farmed fields into woodland will help to reduce the amount of nitrogen they leak into the sea.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, said she hoped the deal would provide a template for other countries. Stephanie Lose, the economy minister, described it as a wholesale “realignment” of the country’s food production.
Critics, however, argue that it will curtail much-needed investment in modernisation and food security.
