Title: Mitigating climate change through oil palm cultivation

Authors: Yew Foong-Kheong, Kalyana Sundram, Yusof Basiron

Addresses: Malaysian Palm Oil Council, 2nd Floor, Wisma Sawit, Lot 6, SS 6, Jalan Perbandaran, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. ' Malaysian Palm Oil Council, 2nd Floor, Wisma Sawit, Lot 6, SS 6, Jalan Perbandaran, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. ' Malaysian Palm Oil Council, 2nd Floor, Wisma Sawit, Lot 6, SS 6, Jalan Perbandaran, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: Oil palm requires 7-11 times less land area than soyabean, rapeseed and sunflower to produce the same amount of oil. Therefore, the use of palm oil for food and biofuel, has saved 97-159 million ha of land from being deforested for cultivation with lower yielding oil crops. This has avoided 27-45 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂-e) emissions. Oil palm also sequesters eight times more CO₂ than soyabean. As a biofuel, the use of palm biodiesel results in 62-82% Life Cycle Analysis Greenhouse Gas (LCA GHG) reduction when compared with fossil fuel.

Keywords: oil palm; oil crops; LCA GHG reduction; green biofuels; climate change; deforestation; CO2 emissions; CO2 sequestration; carbon emissions; carbon sequestration; carbon dioxide; palm oil; palm biodiesel; fossil fuels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2010.033717

International Journal of Global Warming, 2010 Vol.2 No.2, pp.118 - 127

Received: 18 Feb 2010
Accepted: 18 Feb 2010
Published online: 29 Jun 2010 *

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