Palm oil no longer sustainable for Malaysians, unless they burn it!

KUALA LUMPUR ~ Malaysian power producers will soon start burning palm oil instead of coal following the collapse of palm oil prices on the international market.
Under a plan announced last week by the country’s Plantation Industries and Commodities minister Peter Chin, the Malaysian government also aims to ensure that palm biodiesel is available at every [...]

Indonesia’s president doing next to nothing about climate change: Greenpeace

SINGAPORE ~ Indonesia’s president is reneging on the promise he made to halve his country’s greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation by 2009, environmentalists said today.
At the July 2008 Hokkaido G8 meeting, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made a commitment to reduce his country’s greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation by 50 percent within 18 months.
“Six months [...]

UN throws another US$8.6 million at tropical forests

YOKOHAMA ~ The UN’s International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) has announced funding of US$8.6 million to help reduce deforestation in the tropics in addition to the $3.1 million committed earlier this year bringing the total pledged in 2008 to a staggering $11.7 million.
The ITTC announced the news in a statement which also revealed that only [...]

UN sanctions required to stop Indonesia logging: campaigners

SINGAPORE ~ Indonesia, currently third after China and USA in the CO2 emission league table, could become the world’s worst unless something is done to stem the country’s pursuit of wealth through logging and palm-oil cultivation.
Responding to the declaration by Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last week that his state would send financial aid to keep [...]

Palm oil club is a dismal failure: Greenpeace

SINGAPORE ~ The palm oil industry body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Oil (RSPO), has failed dismally to take up the challenge of sustainable oil, Greenpeace said yesterday.”‘Sustainable palm oil’ continues to be a farce while RSPO stands exposed as a weak and ineffectual industry body.” said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner.

Minister admits palm-oil cultivation ‘out of control’ in Indonesia

SINGAPORE ~ Indonesia’s agriculture minister Mr Anton Apriyantono said international demands for a moratorium on the country’s drive to expand oil palm plantations, is beyond the control of his government.
Speaking at the opening of the annual meeting of the recently discredited Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Bali, Apriyantono said any moratorium, including the one [...]

RSPO palm oil club is nothing but greenwash: Greenpeace

SINGAPORE ~ Greenpeace is calling upon the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to take immediate action against member companies that are destroying Indonesia’s forests and peatlands.
Greenpeace research shows that the “Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO),  which opens its annual shindig in Bali today, is little more than greenwash, the organisation said in a [...]

Palm oil body accused of ignoring greenhouse gas emissions

JAKARTA ~ The body set up to certify “sustainable” palm-oil production in Malaysia and Indonesia is completely ignoring greenhouse gas emissions in its certification procedure, according to a report issued today.
In a damning statement, Wetlands International says that palm oil shipped to Europe by members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is far [...]

Malaysia palm oil lobby accused of green-wash, dishonesty

SINGAPORE ~ Malaysian palm oil is finding its way into the fuel tanks of automobiles and other road vehicles in Europe despite concerns about its carbon balance and the rainforest being destroyed to produce it.
According to a new report by Friends of the Earth international, claims by the UK’s Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) that Malaysian [...]

Nestle, Cadbury, Coke, Pepsi, Unilever et al refuse to make palm-oil pledge

SINGAPORE – Thirty-one food, cosmetic and consumer goods companies – and one palm-oil supplier – have signed a Rainforest Action Network (Ran) pledge to support a moratorium on the expansion of palm-oil plantations into tropical forests.
  But many others, including major international corporations such as Cadbury, Campbell Soup, Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, Hershey, Kellogg’s, Kraft, L’Oreal, [...]