The Norwegian parliament voted this week to make Norway the world’s first country to bar its biofuel industry from importing deforestation -linked palm oil starting in 2020, The Independent reported. Environmentalists celebrated the move as a victory for rainforests , the climate and endangered species such as orangutans that have lost their habitats due to palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia. It also sets a major precedent for other nations. "The Norwegian parliament’s decision sets an important example to other countries and underlines the need for a serious reform of the world’s palm oil industry," said Nils Hermann Ranum of the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) in a press release emailed to EcoWatch. A 2017 report commissioned by RFN found that palm oil-based biofuel is worse for the climate than fossil fuels. The report, authored by low carbon fuels policy expert Chris Malins, concludes: "There is a large body of evidence that because of indirect land use change, palm oil biodiesel is worse for the climate than the fossil fuel it replaces—perhaps several times worse." Norway’s consumption of palm oil-based fuels hit all-time high in 2017, according to RFN. The country consumed 317 million liters of palm-oil based biodiesel, […]
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