Climate policies for food consumption: where’s the beef?: Analyzing the policy options and political feasibility for a climate neutral welfare society

Research Project, 2019 – 2022

Food production and consumption is a key driver of climate change. Several recent analyses have concluded that diet shifts from animal to plant products constitute a key climate mitigation strategy. People´s choice of diet is strongly linked to culture and identity and we can therefore not expect meat consumption to decrease through voluntary efforts, which increases the demand for and necessity for political solutions. However, we know that state intervention in the form of, for example, CO2 taxes, faces strong resistance in many contexts. Even though people are concerned with climate change, they dislike the policy intervention aimed at avoiding the problem. How can this be understood? Previous literature has identified a number of both contextual and individual-level factors that explain support and rejection of climate policies. In this project, we focus on environmental policy instruments in the food sector, which today is an almost unexplored field. The overall purpose of this project is thus to explore potential policy options for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from Swedish food consumption, with a focus on the political acceptability and feasibility of such measures. To do this, we use both survey data and qualitative and quantitative content analysis. This will give us an increased understanding of people´s views on environmental policy governance in the food sector, and point out potential ways for Sweden to reach the goal of a climate-neutral society