Belgium will ban biofuels made from soy and palm oil from 2022 onward as part of its effort to combat deforestation, said the European nation’s Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Zakia Khattabi on Tuesday. “These fuels have little or no advantage over conventional fossil fuels from a climate point of view, but lead to deforestation, loss of biodiversity and even human rights violations,” Khattabi said in a statement. Khattabi said consumption of palm oil-based biodiesel in Belgium increased tenfold between 2019 and 2020 to 231 million liters, a volume that requires a land area of “more than 100,000 football fields.” “We know from studies that at least half of those palm oil plantations have been planted on land that has recently been deforested,” she said. In making the move, Belgium joins Denmark, France, and the Netherlands as other European nations that have barred palm oil-based biodiesel due the crop’s association with large-scale conversion of native forests and peatlands for industrial plantations, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia. Soy-based biodiesel will be banned from the Belgian transport market in 2023. Soy has emerged as a significant driver of deforestation in the Amazon and Chaco forests in South America over the past 30 years. Khattabi said the ban was the first measure Belgium has taken since it became a member of the Amsterdam Declaration Partnership in January 2021. The Amsterdam Declaration aims to eliminate deforestation from agricultural commodities by 2025. “This is a first step to stop the negative environmental impact of federal biofuel policy,” Khattabi said. “The federal government will also reduce the demand for biofuels by focusing on electric transport and rail transport.” This article is republished from Mongabay under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Beligum is the latest European country to ban soy and palm oil biofuels

Piri

It is an interesting topic. I read some info about the use of soy products as for now the higher percentage goes to the animals after as hour food and the least to biofuels. At some point I believe it is a great step for the future as there is a rise in demand for biofuel.

Aiga

If soy and palm oil are good for all these things that are not food, why we do not have big systems to grow them hydropnically in vertical farms some place. If we will not eat it anyway maybe that is good enough and stops needing to clear forests.

Best is to stop the need for biofuel or any other fuel we burn and use green electricity of course but we will have the old vehicles on the roads for a long time still.

Skylar

Aiga

Great question! Could it be they take a lot of space and sell cheaply so are grown in places where land is cheap. No idea, I'm guessing.

Aiga

Skylar

I looked it up a little. No idea why we don't do it in a factory kind of greenhouse like you suggest, but outside it is hard to grow in Europe. The north is too cold and the south is too dry.

Skylar

It's also amazing that they use a lot of fuel to ship this fuel around the world. Making things electric and getting rid of the need for these fuels at all has to be the best idea.

Arvīds

Skylar It's also amazing that they use a lot of fuel to ship this fuel around the world. Making things electric and getting rid of the need for these fuels at all has to be the best idea.

The oil as fuel industry should be on the way out but if all new cars sold from tomorrow were electric there would still be 1.32 billion oil burning cars already on the road. They will not go away fast.

Aiga

Arvīds The oil as fuel industry should be on the way out but if all new cars sold from tomorrow were electric there would still be 1.32 billion oil burning cars already on the road. They will not go away fast

That is true! Even if we start to get rid of them all in the first world then I guess a lot then get shipped off to poor parts of Africa and increase the amount of cars burning oil there.

Skylar

Aiga but if governments are gong to make laws that stop people from buying new oil powered cars then they could also make laws against exporting them.

I do not know why there is not a bigger industry converting older cars to electric power instead of just getting rid of them and making new ones. Is there a reason why this is not practical to do?

Aiga

Skylar Probably more expensive than just building new ones.

Ash

It would be great to see a decreased use of palm oil. Whilst it's not always easy to avoid, it's great that we've started to get some alternative products that don't use palm oil

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