In the battle against climate change carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas often grabbing the most attention

But methane is actually more harmful in terms of trapping heat with 80 times more of an effect than CO2 during the first decades after it's

released.

Now one country is teeing up a different and controversial approach to reducing these emissions.

Ali Rogan has more.

Landfills, oil, and natural gas all contribute methane,

but according to the United Nations,

32% of human-caused methane emissions come from livestock.

Last week, Denmark's coalition government announced that they would introduce a first

of its kind annual tax on livestock greenhouse gas emissions.

It amounts to about $100 per cow in an effort to curb climate change.

Ben Lilliston is the Director of Rural Strategies and Climate Change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Ben, thank you so much for being here.

First of all, how big of a problem is methane and does it get enough attention

as it relates to the attention that seems to be put on carbon dioxide.

It's a huge challenge. It's also an opportunity to help us have a bigger impact on climate change

faster. So methane is only in the atmosphere for around 12 years and it is about

80 times the potency of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. So as a result if you reduce methane a of a window to reduce carbon dioxide emission.

And why do cows and other livestock produce so much methane?

Well, it's ruminants in particular, so cows and sheep,

and it has to do with their stomachs and how they work they have multiple

stomachs and they velch out most of that methane is coming out of their their

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