Design of climate tax on food consumption

This study examines appropriate design of climate taxes on consumption of food by constructing a simple theoretical model and exemplify the results on climate taxes on consumption of tomatoes and beef in Sweden. The theoretical results showed that i) existing taxes on greenhouse gases (GHG) should be considered to avoid double taxation, ii) taxes need to be differentiated between GHG (carbon dioxide, CO2, methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O, in present study) because of their different climate impact, and iii) suggested tax levels on GHG in the literature rest on quite different approaches to climate management. The calculations of climate taxes on tomatoes and beef in Sweden indicated considerable differences in the tax level depending on calculation method. The commonly applied suggestion of taxing carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) and disregard existing taxes on GHG emission results in a tax that is five times the appropriate tax for tomatoes and 2.5 times that for beef. The price increases on consumption of food due to a climate tax can thus show large variation depending on tax calculation method.