Further, a meat tax could help establish healthy, flexitarian diets that could be consumed by everyone. In the United States and Britian, people eat three to four times the healthy level for meat. Americans ate 120 pounds of meat in 2009, compared with four pounds in Bangladesh. We could be in trouble if those in populous, economic centers, such as China and Brazil, act like the West. China is a "grave concern" to experts, Hajer said.

Along with a tax, a meat cutback could be achieved by making plant-based diets more appealing and less expensive. People in the West often think that vegetarianism is a diet for wealthier folks, Wellesley said.
This chart shows the considerable health benefits that could be reaped from reducing meat consumption as part of a more nutritious diet. The United States could slash its health-care spending the most by phasing out meat for vegetables.
 
 
But until tariffs are levied, experts worry about how to make people realize that meat is harmful for the environment. Wellesley said people globally are more apt to wring their hands over cranking the air conditioner. That cheeseburger is largely seen as disastrous to heart health or their thighs, not global warming.
 
“Government is wary of introducing taxes on food products,” Wellesley said. “Civil society and industry may say the tax would would harm or limit the poorer members of society. Those concerns were raised in the focus group.”