Global Impact

During the forest fires in September and October, Indonesia rivaled China and US in terms of global greenhouse gas emissions. Where they would typically emit 2.1 megatons of carbon dioxide per day, the fires meant that this figure increased to 23 megatons in September and soared exponentially to 61 megatons in mid-October, accounting for approximately 97% of the country's total emissions. But as developed nations, are we out-sourcing our greenhouse gas emissions?

This Guardian article, suggests that there is an eco-apocalypse on the horizon, especially as important environmental issues go unreported by the media. The media and governments work in tandem, so when one ignores the issue at hand, the other will follow suit. It is easy to think that because the haze is happening many miles away on the other side of the world, that it does not affect us, but this is not the case.
42 million metric tonnes of palm oil per year is exported to countries around the world and in 2013, only 16% was certified as sustainable palm oil, meeting RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) regulations regarding deforestation, transparency, legal criteria and social impacts. As mentioned in previous blog posts, palm oil is a product used in everyday life, and the developed nations of the world are the people who are consuming the most and demanding more palm oil as a consequence. Is more consumer awareness enough to challenge the negative effects of the haze?