Resources Sustainability

The palm oil conundrum in EU-ASEAN relations (2 March)

Palm oil tensions between the EU and Indonesia and Malaysia continue to be a point of contention in the group’s ties with Southeast Asian countries. With new regulatory changes now taking place on the basis of the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II of 2018, Indonesia and Malaysia are trying to come to terms with the implications for their global palm oil market strategy and domestic production. They are mobilising intra-regional support from ASEAN and its members and even considering bringing their case forward to the WTO. The prospect of a considerable dip in palm oil exports to the European Union has become very real. And in light of contemporary global efforts to fight climate change and European discourse linking deforestation and high emission levels of carbon dioxide to palm oil plantations in Southeast Asia, there are fears among Southeast Asian growers and other stakeholders that the lower export volumes to the European Union will remain.

Source: The Diplomat

No more plantations in Papua, says Indonesia’s point man for palm oil (3 March)

A top Indonesian official has declared a halt to new oil palm plantations in the country’s heavily forested Papua region in favour of other, “greener,” crops, apparently contradicting his vigorous earlier defenses of the industry. The remarks by Luhut Pandjaitan, the chief minister in charge of investments, including in the palm oil industry, came in the wake of a court verdict ordering the government to publish maps and concession-holder details for plantations in Papua. But activists are sceptical, given that the minister has been the government’s most vocal defender of the palm oil industry.

Source: Eco-Business

Indonesia’s forests battered to a pulp (3 March)

As Indonesia’s fire season is set to start in April, President Joko Widodo has gone on the offensive, lambasting senior officials and demanding accountability for the 2019 land and forest fires that ravaged his country. But instead of increasing peatlands’ protection, Jakarta has taken steps to reduce restrictions, causing widespread alarm among the environmental community. Previous regulations passed in the wake of the 2015 fires had required companies who hold land containing peat layers 3 meters or deeper to restore and conserve those areas. New regulations enacted in 2019 by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry have limited areas that need to be protected to “peat domes,” or landscapes with peat so thick that the centre is topographically higher than its edges. The areas beyond these “domes” are now open to exploitation.

Source: Asia Times

Where the logging ends in Indonesian Borneo, the forest clearing begins (4 March)

A recent study of timber concessions in the Indonesian Bornean provinces of East and North Kalimantan found that concessions that were not being logged actively showed higher rates of deforestation than active operations. Inactive concessions can be vulnerable to illegal forest clearing for farming and industrial agriculture. Some of the concessions found to be most vulnerable to deforestation are also important habitats for endangered species, highlighting the need for careful monitoring of inactive concessions.

Source: Mongabay

Thailand: Keeping forest floor moist to stop fires

Forest fires have stretched the government’s manpower and resources, prompting authorities to rethink their approach and work on keeping forest floors moist to contain the spread of fires. With trees shedding their leaves early this year, Thailand has already experienced at least three major wildfires. The hardest-hit are provinces with high mountain ranges in the upper North, such as Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Tak and Lampang. In a bid to mitigate the severity of these fires and their impact on the people’s health, Lampang governor Narongsak Osottanakorn last year launched a pilot project called Pa Piak (wet forest), along with public campaigns against biomass burning. The new firebreak technique proves successful in Lampang.

Source: Bangkok Post

Green Finance

Billionaire Chris Hohn threatens to sue coal-financing banks (2 March)

Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered could all face a legal challenge from the charity co-founded by billionaire hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn, who has promised to take action if the three banks do not stop lending money to coal-mining companies. Sir Christopher, founder of US$28 billion activist hedge fund company TCI, has written to the chairmen of Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered urging them to phase out financing for fossil fuels such as coal. The letters also asked the three banks to publicly disclose their coal loan exposures and to re-evaluate the risks of financing fossil fuels projects. The Bank of England, European Central Bank and Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), an association of regulators that includes China’s central bank, have also received letters from Sir Christopher asking them to instruct commercial banks to increase the risk weighting of coal loans. This would require commercial banks to set aside significantly more capital to offset potential defaults and would make all coal loans unattractive.

Sources: The Financial Times, Reuters

Asian finance group pushes softer standards for green deals (3 March)

The Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association, representing a group of Asian banks and securities firms with more than US$35 trillion in assets, is demanding that the region has a stronger voice in setting global standards for sustainable finance that better reflect the needs of emerging markets. Its new report released on 3 March 2020 underscores the delicate balance facing Asian banks and money managers as they strive to fight climate change while seeking watered-down standards to support their domestic economies. With global banks and regulators working on new classifications – or taxonomy – for sustainable finance, these regional differences should be taken into account and Asian views heard, according to Matthew Chan, the finance group’s head of policy and regulatory affairs. The group also said that over time, convergence to common frameworks is needed, whilst still allowing flexibility for nuance and differences between different economies’ paths to sustainability.

Sources: The Edge Markets Malaysia, Bloomberg

ADB to provide Indonesia with US$2.7b in loans to support human capital, infrastructure development (3-4 March)

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide around US$2.7 billion in loans this year to support Indonesia’s human capital, infrastructure and green energy development. This is an increase of US$1 billion from the US$1.7 billion it provided to Indonesia in 2019. In his inaugural speech at the beginning of his second term, President Joko Widodo announced that his administration would prioritise human capital and infrastructure development. The administration aims to set Indonesia on the path to becoming one of the world’s five largest economies by 2045, with a near zero percent poverty rate and an average per person monthly income of Rp 27 million. After meeting with President Jokowi, ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa said the bank would focus on providing support in a range of areas including clean energy, higher education and skills development as well as innovative green and blue financing. The ADB has also committed to funding several projects in South Sulawesi including the Mamminasata toll-road project, low-cost apartment developments and a clean water programme. The bank plans to finance priority projects of the Indonesian government and the private sector.

Sources: The Jakarta Post, The Star Online

Analysis shows climate finance not reaching most vulnerable (5 March)

A new analysis of climate finance by the charity WaterAid suggested that existing climate finance is not reaching the poorest and most vulnerable, who are likely to be worst affected by the climate crisis. The report found that half of all countries receive less than US$5 per person per year in climate finance. Although water is at the heart of the climate crisis – because some of the biggest impacts will be felt in the form of droughts and floods – spending on water issues takes a low priority in climate finance. WaterAid found that only a fraction of the money spent on climate finance goes on efforts to improve access to water or sanitation. Access to clean water will become an even more pressing problem in much of the developing world as the climate crisis takes hold. About 800 million people live without proper access to water near to home, and 2 billion people live without a water service that is reliable, safe and free from contamination.

Source: The Guardian

Social Sustainability

India’s tree planting, conservation push sparks land conflicts (1-3 March)

A report by New Delhi-based research organisation Land Conflict Watch (LCW) found that a drive to plant trees and conserve areas for wildlife is triggering conflicts over land in India, with poor villagers and indigenous people most at risk of losing their homes and livelihoods. As part of its commitment to reduce carbon emissions and meet pledges made under the Paris climate accord, India is aiming to increase its forest area and green cover to a third of its total land area by 2030, up from about a quarter. Many of India’s tree-planting programmes are in areas where indigenous communities have traditional land rights. There are at least 703 ongoing land conflicts across India, affecting more than 6.5 million people and covering over 2.1 million hectares of land. State governments have started banking land for tree planting schemes, typically common lands over which there are no clear titles. Such land banks are usually made up of land that was initially set aside for industrial and infrastructure projects. When these projects were shelved, states kept the land for potential future use rather than return them to the communities.

Sources: Reuters, Eco-Business, Mongabay

Human trafficking report ‘ready’ (5 March)

Thailand has put together a report on its progress in combating human trafficking cases over the past year and plans to submit it to the US Department of State by early next month. According to Maj Gen Phatchasak Patirupanon, assistant to the spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, the progress report will be submitted along with last year’s annual report on Thailand’s human-trafficking situation. Thailand was given Tier 2 ranking for a second year in a row after it published its 2019 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report in June last year. It had the lowest ranking, Tier 3, in 2014, before it was upgraded in 2016 to Tier 2 Watchlist, a category in which countries are judged as not being fully compliant with the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act. In 2018, the country was moved up to Tier 2, indicating significant progress in complying with higher standards.

Source: The Bangkok Post

UN research: Nearly everyone is biased against women (5-6 March)

Nine in 10 people are prejudiced against women, such as thinking university education is more important for men or that men deserve jobs more if work is scarce, according to the first gender social norm index by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The index – designed to measure how social beliefs obstruct gender equality – analysed data from 75 countries that collectively, are home to more than 80 percent of the global population. It found some progress, including an increase in girls enrolled in primary school and a drop in maternal deaths, but also deeply ingrained prejudices. The report comes as rights campaigners call on world leaders to accelerate action to meet global targets on gender equality. In an open letter signed by nine presidents and CEOs of organisations including Plan International, Women Deliver, the One Campaign and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the leaders found that if the current pace continues, 67 countries – home to 2.1 billion girls and women – will not achieve any of the key gender equality targets they studied by 2030. These countries are not just the poorest. If the trends over the past two decades continue, the US will be among them.

Sources: BBC, The Guardian, New Straits Times, The Straits Times