The effects of unilateral climate policy towards agriculture: A case study of Denmark

Abstract

To meet their climate policy obligations towards the EU, some EU member states will have to adopt strict climate policies towards agriculture. Responding to this need, the Danish parliament recently decided to impose a tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the country's livestock production. We develop a simple model of primary agriculture and its interaction with the food industry to illustrate the main economic mechanisms determining the impact of a unilateral tax on GHG emissions from domestic agriculture. To study the allocation effects of the GHG tax on agriculture and the impact on the wider economy over time, we then present a disaggregated dynamic simulation model of Danish agriculture, embedded in a large‐scale computable general equilibrium model. The model predicts that a large share of the cost increase induced by the tax will be shifted forward onto higher input prices in the food industry and ultimately onto consumers via higher food prices, but landowners will also bear a significant part of the burden through a fall in land prices. The GHG tax will induce a reallocation from animal to plant production, which would be even more pronounced in the case of a livestock‐specific tax as currently foreseen, and from conventional to organic farming. This will help to reduce the total emissions from agriculture, but the largest share of the emission cuts will stem from a fall in output, as there are still few low‐cost technical abatement possibilities in agriculture.