The UK’s accession to a trade partnership with multiple Asia-Pacific countries would see concessions on nature such as the slashing of tariffs on palm oil imports from Malaysia, according to people involved in the talks as reported by the Financial Times.
The UK is finalising entry terms to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – an 11-member trade bloc including Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, and Vietnam – having been negotiating for two years.
According to those involved in discussions, Malaysia, has successfully demanded that the UK cut to zero its palm oil tariffs, that currently stand at 12%, as a prerequisite for acession, the Financial Times reported.
UK Trade Minister Greg Hands visited Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore earlier in the year to promote the UK’s accession to CPTPP.
Palm oil harvesting requires widespread cutting down of forests, which damages biodiversity and in particular destroys the habitat of orangutans.
Green groups told the newspaper that the policy would have a devastating impact on nature in Malaysia, where palm oil futures have already risen on the news in anticipation of the higher demand from the UK, one market source suggested.
“The removal of tariffs on palm oil products from Malaysia without any environmental safeguards makes it very hard for the UK to call itself a climate leader committed to tackling deforestation and protecting precious habitats of endangered species,” Alex Wijeratna, senior director at deforestation campaign group Mighty Earth, was reported as saying in the article.
Malaysia is the world’s second-biggest producer of palm oil after Indonesia which is not a member of CPTPP.
MIXED SIGNALS
The move to join the pact despite environmental concerns goes against both UK biodiversity policy and that of the EU.
Brussels for example retains palm oil tariffs and has developed stringent new rules against imports linked to deforestation that experts have suggested to Carbon Pulse will set a new global precedent for nature-friendly trade.
The UK has also started to build on its own domestic nature laws, outlining nature restoration plans and mandatory nature-positive planning laws for this year.
In the wake of the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed at COP15 in Montreal, relaxing such regulation on imports that most accept are damaging to nature may threaten the UK and Malaysia’s capacity to meet the 30% nature protection goal by 2030 which was agreed by nearly 200 nations at the UN summit.
“This concession is completely at odds with the government’s commitment to curb deforestation from UK supply chains. We need robust legislation that ensures the products we consume in the UK don’t harm forests, communities and wildlife overseas,” Clare Oxborrow, senior sustainability analyst at Friends of the Earth, was reported as saying in the Financial Times.
Critics of the policy have pointed to the expected minimal economic benefits of joining the pact, suggesting it is more a response to the need to sign trade deals in the wake of Brexit.
Many of the 11 members of the partnership want concessions from Britain, such as Canada, which aimed unsuccessfully so far to have the country drop a ban on controversial hormone-treated beef, though the UK is said to be now mulling a revision to its quotas for imports.
By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com
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