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The seven deadly traits of the EUDR
The EU has no serious plan to handle its own agriculture emissions, while at the same time busily ruling on other countries' agricultural policies.
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Seeds of wealth: A worker unloads oil palm fruit bunches from a pickup truck on July 10, 2024 after bringing them from a plantation to sell at a market in Sepaku, East Kalimantan. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
T
he European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will enter into force on Dec. 30, unless the EU follows the advice of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has requested suspension of the implementation of the regulation.
For one, commodities under this draconian regulation, namely timber products, cattle, palm oil, soybean, coffee, cacao and natural rubber will be heavily scrutinized.
Having been involved in many discussions on the EUDR with various stakeholders in Europe, including the latest Sustainable Vegetable Oils Conference on Sept. 10, I conclude that there seems to be seven deadly traits of the EUDR.
First, the EUDR is fundamentally very discriminatory. While the EU is willing to go far and wide to scrutinize vegetable oils such as palm oil, the EU willfully excludes its own vegetable oils such as rapeseed, sunflower, linseed, olive oil and others.
A recent McKinsey report revealed that EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the agriculture sector in 2050 will match its emissions in 1990. This means that the EU has no serious plan to handle its own agriculture emissions, while at the same time busy ruling on other countries’ agricultural policies.
The EU also excludes peat from its drained and destroyed peatland in the EUDR, although peat is a similar product to woodchips and wood pellets. Annually the EU extracts 20 million tonnes of peat for energy and farming.
This a double whammy situation, because peat extraction and burning have a massive negative effect on the environment. The 20 million tonnes of extracted peat is actually more than the EU’s total import of palm oil (6.2 million tonnes), coffee (3.6 million tonnes), cocoa (1.9 million tonnes) and natural rubber (0.9 million tonnes). And 12 million hectares of EU peatland have already been destroyed.
