Net Zero Aviation Targets Driving “Mass Scale” Fraud and Deforestation – Watts Up With That?

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

BY WILL JONES

Net Zero targets aimed at encouraging airlines to use so-called green aviation fuel are driving fraud “at a mass scale” and deforestation, campaigners have said. The Telegraph has the story.

Exporters in China and Malaysia are using virgin palm oil instead of recycled cooking fat to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), research from lobby group Transport & Environment (T&E) suggests.

This means that rather than reducing CO₂ emissions, the drive to adopt SAF may instead be driving deforestation.

SAF accounts for just 0.2% of total jet fuel use, although the British Government has ordered U.K. airlines to lift that proportion to 10% by the end of the decade.

Cooking oil forms the basis for 80% of the world’s SAF, making old chip fat a valuable commodity. 

However, unscrupulous suppliers are seeking to turn a profit by cutting out the kitchen altogether and shipping virgin palm oil to unwary refiners and airlines.

Malaysia is the worst offender, according to T&E, as campaigners cast doubt over the country’s claims that it exports three times more used cooking oil than it collects. 

Last year Britain secured almost 30% of its SAF from oil shipped from Malaysia.

Cian Delaney, the group’s biofuels campaigner, said: “With Malaysia being one of the world’s largest palm oil producers, it would heavily indicate that used cooking oil is simply a backdoor for palm. Fraud is almost certainly happening at a mass scale.”

China also appears to be engaged in cooking oil fraud, T&E said.

While figures on the collection and export of oil appear to match, China has a large market for “gutter oil” that is illegally resold for cooking.

Taking that into account, there are “strong suspicions” that some exports include virgin vegetable oil mislabelled as waste oil.

Worth reading in full.