The European Union is committed to addressing the global problem of deforestation. According to its lofty ambition, deforestation will stop, or even reverse, by 2030, after the participation of world leaders at his COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021. I have. pledged to turn the tide. However, the delay in implementing the plan already Appearance. But fear not. The European Union has a radical new plan and promises to get us on track.
The European Union Due Diligence Proposal is the official name for the proposed new EU regulation. The goal is to increase the accountability of companies involved in deforestation across their supply chains.some environmentalists see this As positive progress in the fight against deforestation. However, picking out a particular product or business is short-sighted and counterproductive.
New laws based on “due diligence” are short-sighted and fundamentally flawed. Its goal is to reduce deforestation by eliminating environmentally harmful processes from manufacturing to retail. Instead of adopting a blanket strategy, single out specific sectors (beef, cocoa, palm oil, etc.) for criticism.
Other vegetable oils such as rapeseed and olive (both produced in Europe) are less land-use efficient than palm oil and contribute to deforestation, but the EU has an unfair history. targeting Palm oil (imported from Malaysia and Indonesia) is used for extra scrutiny, while other vegetable oils are largely ignored. To produce the same amount of oil, as much as possible Requires 10x more land versus coconut oil. Under the guise of environmental protection, the EU move looks like a naked attempt to intervene in the market to protect domestic companies from international rivals.
The European Union’s solution to this problem could push up food costs at a time when Europeans have less access to food. The move by the EU to restrict access to foreign imports will drive up costs for consumers by forcing many domestic producers to switch to more expensive alternatives. In the midst of a crisis where the cost of basic necessities has already risen due to inflation and cost of living pressures, that seems highly irresponsible.
The European Union is showing the world how not to deal with deforestation. The role of government should be limited to providing incentives for sustainable behavior rather than intervening in markets at will. There are industries like palm oil that don’t need government incentives because of overwhelming consumer demand for sustainable practices.
The due diligence proposal is, unfortunately, a model of how virtue signals trump real policy change. If the European Commission’s goal was to reduce deforestation, it would have investigated the factors that lead to widespread deforestation. Palm oil has already been shown to be the most land-use efficient vegetable oil, so limiting its imports clearly does not contribute to efforts to reduce deforestation.
Our elected officials must be open and honest about how their policies achieve their goals. It can have far-reaching consequences for other parts of the world in a linked globalized economy. It is bad for everyone to make hasty market interventions that can have negative consequences. There is none.
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