Climate Change

I apologise to Members whose speeches I may have missed during the afternoon. However, I have been able to hear a lot of the debate. I should like to discuss palm oil, because one of the most important things that the Government have tried to meet is the renewable transport fuel obligation. I fear that, accidentally, they have increased the chances of the orang-utan, Asia's only great ape, becoming extinct. I do not think that that was their intention, but with deforestation meaning the loss of such a vital carbon sink, and with 6.5 million to 10 million hectares of rainforest having been cleared across Sumatra and Borneo, within 15 years 98 per cent. of Indonesian rainforest could be extinct. That will have a devastating impact on climate change, on efforts to reduce emissions and on vital habitats. There are 7,000 Sumatran orang-utans and 12,000 to 15,000 Bornean orang-utans left in the wild. Extinction could be as near as five to 10 years away. Some 80 per cent. of orang-utan habitats have been lost or altered, and unless we stop that destruction we will fail in our well intentioned efforts to save the planet. About 90 per cent. of palm oil exports are from Indonesia and Malaysia, and palm oil is found in 10 per cent. of the products in UK supermarkets. More than 900,000 tonnes of palm oil are imported by the UK, and figures are set to rise as biofuel levels increase to meet the RTFO biofuels target of 3.5 per cent. by 2010-11. Biofuels may not be the long-term panacea, and we need to look to the Government to accelerate the development both of hydrogen, like in California, and of electric charging points. Indeed, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, plans to introduce up to 25,000 such points in London. We need to strike a balance between palm oil as a biofuel and the loss of rainforest and the impact of biodiversity on animals such as orang-utans, rhinos and the pygmy elephant. I happened to go to Borneo last year—it is in the Register of Members' Interests—and I wanted to tell the House about the work of a company called Sime Darby, which took me out there and showed me how, in Malaysia, one can combine biofuel and palm oil production with a genuine conscience and on a renewable and sustainable basis. The company's work was fantastic: it had joined the political process with the farming process—the production of that important biofuel—and it was doing so positively and brilliantly. It is time that we heard that side of the story, and about what is going on to protect the orang-utan. It is being protected in Malaysia but, tragically, not in Indonesia.