There is no doubt that European skies can become cleaner if more transportation used bio-fuels from vegetable oils rather than fossil fuels. Despite the potential of reduced emissions, criticisms remain. One is that it would be using a food source for energy when the expected human population is predicted to hit nine billion. A second criticism is the emissions and environmental impact from the production of vegetable oils, especially palm oil.
Palm oil as a source is able to meet the demand for edible vegetable oil for 9 billion humans and more if the millions of hectares of new plantations planned for Africa and Southeast Asian countries are realized. It would make sense therefore to sell off excess production to the transportation and energy sectors to facilitate a move away from fossil fuels but palm oil has a dirty history.
It is one of the most heavily scrutinized industries as its impact is so clearly seen in images of clear cut tropical forests and homeless great apes. This has prompted import countries like France to propose ways of controlling its consumption through extraordinary taxes like the Nutella tax.
Focusing on one ingredient in Nutella while ignoring the rest of its ingredients is typical of the broken conversations surrounding global sustainability. If biodiversity and the health of French citizens is really that important, they should first question the main ingredient in Nutella, which is sugar. Nutella is doing an unparalled job at using certified palm oil but that has not spared it from being the favored target for anti palm oil campaigns.
What Nutella is actually made of MrFlow/Reddit
Would extraordinary tariffs on palm oil imports really work to save forests? This is the claimed intent of the new MEP proposals on palm oil use in biofuels but it won’t work.
Palm oil maybe a key industry for producer countries like Malaysia but rubber and timber which the EU imports as well are dominant influences on the land use. There are important lessons to be learnt from the EU position on sugar. We live in an interconnected world which runs on being a big marketplace but in the name of sustainability, we have to look for what countries do what best.
It would run against any concept of sustainability for Malaysia to make cars to compete against Mercedes Benz for status symbols or for French farmers to grow oil palm in greenhouses to get a superior yielding vegetable oil crop.
Production and import quotas like those imposed on sugar may serve as a feel good gesture but the fact remains that the EU cannot sustain itself. This massive petition by Europeans calling on the EU Commission to fix a broken food and farm system can attest to that. I would not dare to suggest to European citizens that their nature and biodiversity is any less important than that of tropical countries.
The simple truth is that all countries need farmers and all farmers need some protection from global market conditions. But to pick and choose what import products to favor based on protecting its own economy would be to shirk its obligations to solving global problems. This is unacceptable.
Oil palm fruit
In the case of palm oil from Malaysia, efforts towards national certification under Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil(MSPO) is progressing as half a million hectares of its total 4.49 million planted hectares will be certified by the end of 2017. At this rate, the target for 100% certification by 2019 should be achieved. A public report of certified operations can be accessed here but will that qualify them for fair market treatment?
There is concern in the Malaysian industry that the MSPO certification may not be accepted by the EU if the union does go ahead with its own standard on sustainable palm oil. It’s too early to try and guess what the EU standard will look like but industry opinion is that the standard will look like that of the ISCC, which is already in place for bio-fuels.
If the ISCC standards are adopted as an EU standard for sustainable palm oil, then the Malaysian industry has little to worry about. Much progress has been achieved in Malaysia to resolve the issues of land and labor rights as well as the need to protect its forests and biodiversity. The one issue that environmental groups might raise is that of peat lands in Sarawak state. As one of the biggest states by land mass in Malaysia and one that is predominantly peat, much of Sarawak is degraded due to decades of timber harvests. However, those degraded lands or brownfields may yet qualify large areas in Sarawak for palm oil expansion under ISCC Principle 4.1.4 which states:
Peatland soils that have been used for cropping before January 2008 are allowed for biomass production as long as a subsequent deeper drainage is not affecting soil that was not already fully drained.
Narrow focus on palm oil not the key to saving forests
Punitive tariffs on selected commodities is not the way to save forests in tropical countries. A better way to save forests is to heed the calls of conservationists for governments and industries to work hand in hand to come up with global strategies to fight climate change and preserve biodiversity. Sabah state in Malaysia remains a model of how government, industry and conservation groups can get this done.
Bottomline is the EU will need land-grown bio-fuels if it is to meet its target for renewable energy. The supplies to create mineral based renewable energy is finite and its negative social and environmental impacts look no better than palm oil from Southeast Asia or sugar cane from South America.
I have no doubt that Malaysia would win a complaint at the WTO should the EU reject MSPO certification and impose extra taxes for whatever reasons but I hope the arguments do not become a simple matter of trade. There would be a lot more pride in achieving recognition of its national certification for palm oil by showing its commitment to sustainability as a country.