A recently leaked report indicates that millions of tonnes of palm oil will be pumped into Britain’s vehicles, despite scientific proof that chopping down rainforests for palm oil plantations exacerbates climate change.
The report suggests that the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED), a mandate intended to reduce greenhous$1$3asses, will result in an increase in the amount of palm oil used on cars and power stations.
A loophole in the draft communication from Brussels on implementation of the directive would allow almost all of the palm oil currently produced to be used in vehicles on British roads.
Currently in Britain, we use 50 billion litres of transport fuel a year, 2.7 per cent of which came from biofuels in 2008-09. Controversially, palm oil, an edible plant oil derived from the pulp of oil palm fruit, already forms part of that mixture.
Under RED, passed last year, ten percent of petrol and diesel in road transport must come from renewable sources. A minority of this will be accounted for by electrical vehicles, but the majority is suspected to come from plant-based fuels such as rapeseed, soy, sugar cane and palm oil. The government says it is keen to avoid using environmentally damaging substances, yet admits they are uncertain where 42 percent of UK transport biofuel comes from.
Palm oil is controversial since it is usually derived from vast plantations, which have gradually replaced rainforests across south-east Asia, west Africa and the Amazon over the past 15 years.
The EC document seemingly protects wildlife areas that could grow these plants by banning member states from sourcing fuel from greenhouse gas sequestering grasslands, wetlands and forests. However, in a crucial exemption, the protection does not apply to habitats changed before January 2008, meaning that member states can legally source palm oil from existing plantations.
The policy is almost certain to increase demand for palm oil. To grow oil palms, around ninety percent of an area’s flora and fauna are lost when the land is converted to monoculture plantations (where the plants are grown in straight lines). Such changes reportedly increase pressure on threatened species such as orangutans and Sumutran tigers. Furthermore, some palm oil producers have also been linked to human rights abuses.
It has been argued that this deal was incited by Malaysian producers, who, fearing the EU would ban imports of palm oil for energy, have lobbied Brussels intensively. Campaigners warn that this deal will lead to fresh bouts of forest destruction in Asia.
According to a study by Denmark’s Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology, published in the journal Conservation Biology in 2008, it would take between seventy-five and ninety-three years for the benefits of this switch to biofuels to outweigh the detrimental effects of converting rainforest to plantations.
1. William Griffiths
From the article it is unclear wether the criticism is aimed at the use of palm oil in particular or the use of all vegetable oils as biofuels. The current campaigns to ban of limit use of palm oil, not just for biofuels but for food, etc has never moved from the emotive scenes of forest being cut down and biodiversity being reduced. The alternatives (soya, rape, etc) can nowhere near compete with the production of oil per hectare, so if switched to in a major way will result in massive increases in forest destruction. The EU and States subsidize the production of these crops to the extent that if the subsidy was removed the companies involved in their production would be forced out of business. The figures for annual forest destruction quoted in most of the reports that link it to palm oil never balance with actual hectares planted and total hectares of forest lost. (Oil palm covers 7 – 8 million hectares in Indonesia (of which 45% are smallholdings) which when compared to land categorised as deforested in Sumatra and Kalimantan is a relatively small percentage. This is never shown. Logging and population pressure are not highlighted. Oil palm has been extrodinary in its ability to aliviate poverty in Indonesia (the root cause of deforestation as the growing population in Indonesia search for a better life). Most smallholidngs are between 2-5 hectares and support an extended family. Large plantations employ roughly 4 -5 workers per hectare. Each worker supports a family (plus the associated support businesses). The consumer driven push to carry out sustainable oil palm production is welcome by most in the busniss. This will force most to improve their standards, in the same way as heath and safety directives in the UK have reduced farm accidents and environmental issues. Those companies that do not want to comply will be forced out of business through lack of markets. Current requirements to become certified through the RSPO scheme are stringent. Most UK farmers would not pass if they were applied in a similar fashion. There are problems, as one would expect in a scheme that is not yet 10 years old (compare this to the FSC scheme for timber and the % of timber now registered under FSC after 35 years). Those who want to improve the palm oil issues should spend time getting a balanced appreciation of the facts and understanding of the real issues driving palm oil expansion and work with the industry to improve its practices, rather than sitting on the sidelines and throwing rocks at it. Palm oil is one of the most efficient plants in the world. The alternative sources of vegetable can never match it unless we are prepared to accept major increases in biodiversity loss and increases in poverty and social unrest.