Demand for palm oil 'is damaging the planet'

Growing demand for Asian palm oil by some of the world's largest companies, such as Unilever, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble, is now one of the principal drivers of climate change, the environmental pressure group Greenpeace says.

Large-scale clearance of tropical forests for oil palm plantations, to feed a growing requirement for cheap vegetable oil for use in the food, cosmetics and biofuel industries, has been responsible for rising emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas.

But a report by Greenpeace highlights an even more dangerous source of greenhouse gases now being exploited in the palm oil rush – Indonesia's peatlands. These peat swamp forests, very dense stores of carbon, are now being depleted at an increasing pace and are responsible for releasing 1.8billion tonnes of CO2 annually, Greenpeace says, using estimates from the Netherlands-based green group Wetlands International.

This represents no less than 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions from less than 0.1 per cent of the earth's land surface. Greenpeace is calling for a temporary ban on forest clearance and peatland degradation, and for a global funding mechanism for avoiding deforestation to be part of the post-2012 phase of the Kyoto protocol.

Palm is far more productive per hectare than either soya or rapeseed and is the most significant vegetable oil in the world, accounting for 30 per cent of world edible oil production.

The report asserts that a small number of major multi-nationals currently account for a large amount of global palm oil use.

This is expected to soar as biofuel production takes off, since palm oil is one of the principal feedstocks for biodiesel.

The study suggests that Indonesia offers a critical example of why greenhouse gas emissions arising from deforestation and land-use change need to be dealt with at the international level, by governments, agencies and corporations.

Interesting? Click here to explore further