Now that the party’s over: achieving GHG emission reduction commitments in Norwegian agriculture

We examine how to achieve Norway’s commitment for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the 2015 UN climate change agreement in the agricultural sector. Norway also aims to ensure food security, defined in terms of a target level of calorie availability from domestic food production. Imposing the GHG reduction commitment considerably reduces the policy space, but can be achieved by shifting by shifting production away from ruminant products to vegetable products. Using a detailed sectoral model of Norwegian agriculture we examine the use of a carbon tax to achieve the required GHG reduction. Differentiating between lower emission dairy products and high emission red meat (beef and sheepmeat) we show that the GHG and food security targets can be achieved while substantially maintaining dairy farming – which is a core activity in Norway’s rural areas. The imposition of a carbon tax in agriculture may pose technical and political challenges. We demonstrate that by rebalancing existing domestic support policies, in particular, reducing the subsidies provided to ruminant meat production we can achieve an outcome that is broadly similar to the carbon tax.