Snacks light fuse of Indonesian "forest bomb"
SINGAPORE, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Indonesia's peatland forests are a ticking "climate bomb" and Kit Kats, Pringles and other palm oil-based products are lighting the fuse, global conservation group Greenpeace said on Thursday.
Clearing forests that grow on the country's thick carbon-storing peatland releases more than a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the group said at the unveiling of its "Cooking the Climate" report in Singapore.
"A handful of international corporations are ultimately responsible for slashing and burning Indonesia's peatlands," said Emmy Hafild, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
"Some of the best-known brands are literally cooking the climate".
Greenpeace estimates that peatlands in Riau Province, on Sumatra island, store the equivalent of one year's global greenhouse emissions -- an estimated 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon.
About three million hectares (7.5 million acres) of these peatland forests are earmarked for conversion to palm oil plantations over the next decade, Greenpeace said.
This "climate bomb" is ticking loudly in the run-up to December's United Nations' climate change meeting in Bali, which is expected to debate forests' role in accelerating -- and slowing -- climate change, said Sue Connor, Greenpeace International Forests Campaigner.
"(If the Riau peatlands are cleared) it would wipe out any chance we have of keeping the temperature increase below two degrees Celsius," she said, referring to a threshold given by the UN's climate panel.
Palm oil is used in anything from body lotions and toothpaste to chocolate bars, crisps and as a component of biofuels, such as biodiesel.
It is the world's second most popular edible oil after soyoil.
FUEL FOR CRITICS
The report names multinationals such as Unilever (ULVR.L), Nestle (NESN.VX) and Procter & Gamble (PG.N), the makers of brands such as Flora margarine, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Kit Kat chocolate bars.
Greenpeace says the companies are implicated in causing rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia.
But just as fans of the companies' chocolate bars and ice creams might not realise their snacks' global environmental impact, the companies were often also in the dark, Connor said.
While the link between peatland clearance and carbon emissions is well established, opaque global supply chains and lack of forest law enforcement in Indonesia make it impossible for end-users to guarantee their oil has come from plantations on legally cleared peat forests. Continued...
