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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 17, 2017 - April 23, 2017

On the face of it, the European Parliament’s resolution of April 4 — calling for a single certification scheme for palm oil entering the European Union in order to counter the impact of unsustainable palm oil production — appears to be a potent response to the global issue of climate change resulting from deforestation driven by palm oil production.

After all, as the 2014 UN Climate Summit noted, the conversion of forests for the production of commodities like soy, palm oil, beef and paper accounts for roughly half of global deforestation, which is occurring at the rate of 13 million hectares annually.

As the most widely consumed vegetable oil globally, palm oil has a significant impact on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions. A 2016 analysis of regional deforestation trends associated with oil palm cultivation shows that in Southeast Asia, 45% of plantations that were sampled came from areas that were forests in 1989.

So it may seem right that the European Parliament’s non-binding resolution, which was passed by 640 votes to 18, with 28 abstentions, seeks to phase out vegetable oils that drive deforestation by 2020.

Calling for an open debate with all players to make palm oil sustainable, Katerina Koneckna, the lawmaker who drafted the resolution, said: “We cannot ignore the problem of deforestation, which threatens the Global Agreement on Climate Change COP21 and UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

Not so fast, please. There is more than one problem with this narrative.

Well, it so happens that oil palm is the most efficient oilseed crop in the world, with a yield up to 10 times higher than other leading oilseed crops.

Simply put, this means that without oil palm, it would take a far larger acreage of cropland to meet the global demand for oils and fats.

A fact sheet by leading palm oil producer Sime Darby, citing the trade journal Oil World, makes this quite clear.

Among the 10 major oilseeds, oil palm accounted for 5.5% of global land use for cultivation, but produced 32% of global oils and fats output in 2012, Oil World states.

In comparison, soyabean — the largest oilseed crop by acreage — took up 40.1% of the total area under oilseed cultivation, which amounted to 258.9 million hectares in 2012, but accounted for 22.4% of global production of 17 major oils and fats, which stood at 186.4 million tonnes in 2012.

As for threatening the UN’s climate change deal, there may also be a similar gap between the scientific consensus and the political posturing about the crisis.

Discussing the causes of global warming, the UN climate change panel’s 5th Synthesis Report of 2014 states that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed about 78% of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2010.

In the light of this, it would appear that the urgency to avert a climate catastrophe would be best addressed by paying a lot more attention to reducing the energy dependency of the industrial world.

It also gives some credence to the complaint of palm oil producing countries that they are being unfairly targeted.

Indonesia and Malaysia, in particular, which together produce 85% of the world’s palm oil, would be severely affected by the EU resolution, if it is carried through into binding action.

Reacting to the passage of the resolution, Malaysia’s Plantation and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong expressed concern that it could deal a blow to one of its biggest exports, Reuters reported.

The EU is Malaysia’s second-largest export market, accounting for 2,059,207 tonnes of palm oil products in 2016, based on Malaysian Palm Oil Board data. Of the amount, 30% is used for biodiesel, Mah said.

The minister also said that given the global attention on deforestation he could see the EU’s action coming.

Indeed, Malaysia was among seven producer countries that had protested to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani when the motion was approved by its environment committee, saying it contained “trade discriminatory language”, according to the Climate Home newsite.

“The imposition of both tariff and other non-tariff trade barriers, or for an outright EU ban on imports of biodiesel derived from palm oil, could provide advantages to the use of other raw materials, entailing direct discrimination against palm oil,” the producers said.

A UN trade official told the news site that a trade dispute under World Trade Organization rules was possible.

For Malaysia, the trade war over edible oils is familiar turf. Since the 1980s, it has raged against a series of campaigns that served to dent its advantages in the global oils and fats market.

The attempts to give palm oil bad press include controversies about the high level of saturated fat in the oil, its role in deforestation, loss of biodiversity, displacement of indigenous peoples, impact on climate change and labour, and other human rights issues.

In these areas, oil palm growers and their governments have given environmental, human rights and other citizens groups much evidence to drag the producers over the coals for their spotty record as good corporate citizens and responsible public institutions.

However, as far the effects of palm oil on consumers’ health goes, the palm oil campaign received an unexpected boost when research showed that the lighter edible oils that are palm oil’s rivals were highly unstable when used for frying.

In order to compare with palm oil as a stable frying oil, many other vegetable oils have to be partially hydrogenated. However, this increases their content of trans fatty acids, which have been found to be up to 10 times worse for heart health than palm oil.

On their part, producer countries have been trumpeting the vital role that the palm oil industry plays in improving the incomes of their poor rural communities.

To gain a more sympathetic hearing from the international community, they could try more earnestly to ensure that the damaging publicity about dispossession of local communities, wanton destruction of rainforests and the heart-wrenching images of wildlife pushed to the brink of extinction can be unquestionably dismissed.


R B Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge Malaysia

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