The European Union’s upcoming ban on imports linked to deforestation has been hailed as a “gold standard” in climate policy: a meaningful step to protect the world’s forests, which help remove planet-killing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The law requires traders to trace the origins of a head-spinning variety of products — beef to books, chocolate and charcoal, lipstick and leather. To the European Union, the mandate, set to take effect next year, is a testament to the bloc’s role as a global leader on climate change.
The policy, though, has gotten caught in fierce crosscurrents about how to navigate the economic and political trade-offs demanded by climate change in a world where power is shifting and international institutions are fracturing.
Developing countries have expressed outrage — with Malaysia and Indonesia among the most vocal. Together, the two nations supply 85 percent of the world’s palm oil, one of seven critical commodities covered by the European Union’s ban. And they maintain that the law puts their economies at risk.
In their eyes, rich, technologically advanced countries — and former colonial powers — are yet again dictating terms and changing the rules of trade when it suits them. “Regulatory imperialism,” Indonesia’s economic minister declared.
The view fits with complaints from developing countries that the reigning international order neglects their concerns.
The palm oil dispute also encapsulates a central tension in the economics of climate change: the argument that lower- and middle-income nations are being compelled to bear the cost of ruinous environmental shifts caused mostly by the world’s wealthiest nations.
“We’re not questioning the need to fight deforestation,” said Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Malaysia’s environment minister. “But it’s not fair when countries that have deforested their own land for centuries, or are responsible for much of our deforestation, can unilaterally impose conditions on us.”
In addition, many government officials, industry representatives and farmers contend that the European Union’s rules are really a form of economic protectionism, a way to shield European farmers who grow competing oilseed crops like rapeseed or soybeans.
The European Union’s law, which was passed last year, bars products that use palm oil and other commodities like rubber and wood that come from forestland that was converted to agriculture after 2020.
Proving compliance could turn out to be complex and expensive for vast numbers of small suppliers.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, the prime minister and president said the livelihoods of their citizens were threatened. They jointly vowed to combat what they called “highly detrimental discriminatory measures against palm oil.”
The concerns have been echoed by anti-poverty advocates and even some environmentalists.
“A lot of people are going to be caught flat-footed when this kicks in next year,” said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Center, a United Nations agency created to help poor countries build wealth through trade.
Most small farmers don’t even know about the looming ban, let alone how to prove their compliance, Ms. Coke-Hamilton said.
In a week of interviews with The New York Times at plantations in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, not a single small farmer had heard of the deforestation rules.
“They’re going to get kicked out of the market,” which could further harm the environment, Ms. Coke-Hamilton said. “We know deforestation is linked to poverty.”
Endless Rows of Oil Palms
The Chinese New Year was a national holiday in Malaysia, but Awang Suang, 77, had been up since dawn, carrying a roaring engine on his back and swinging a hand-held grass cutter around the oil palm trees on his plantation.
“Plantation” is a bit grand to describe the small overgrown plot in Membakut in Sabah that Mr. Awang farms mostly on his own. His holdings amount to 12 acres.
He has been cultivating oil palms for more than 50 years after switching from rubber trees. Palms require less labor and produce more frequent harvests — roughly every two weeks, year round — providing a steadier income, he explained.
The work in Borneo’s humid equatorial heat is exhausting. For tall palms, farmers like Mr. Awang maneuver an extendable pole with a scythe on the end to slice through spiny 50-pound bunches cradled at the top of the trunk. Then they must carry or cart the fallen fruit to a road.
In a good month, Mr. Awang said, he can grow about eight tons of fruit.
Later, over sweet milky tea in a living room lined with six overstuffed, regal-style couches, Mr. Awang explained that most property owners he knew grew oil palms. Many supplement their income…
Read More: Can Europe Save Forests Without Killing Jobs in Malaysia?