We are witnessing the worst environmental disaster of the 21st century so far -- and PepsiCo, Starbucks, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz are some of the major brands behind it.
Right now, Indonesia is literally on fire. Raging forest fires have covered Southeast Asia in a thick, toxic haze. The irreplaceable Indonesian rainforest is burning up before our eyes, taking forest communities and precious wildlife like orangutans, leopards, tigers, and rhinos with it.
Plus, the effect on our climate is unprecedented. The equation is simple, really: living trees store carbon, dead trees release it back into the atmosphere. The Indonesian forest fires are currently releasing more CO2 than the US economy.
Most of Indonesia's forest fires have one thing in common: the big palm oil traders who supply mega corporations such as PepsiCo, Starbucks, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz. This catastrophe is happening because Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil and fires are intentionally lit to clear the land for new plantations.
The only real solution to stopping this carbon time bomb is to prevent forest fires from occurring in the first place.
It is crucial for these industry laggards to adopt responsible palm oil commitments, and finally break the link between their products and this irreversible destruction of our planet.
Tell PepsiCo, Starbucks, Kraft Heinz, and Unilever to adopt truly responsible palm oil policies and commit to zero deforestation.
This is a global crisis: Indonesia is the world's first palm oil producer and the fifth-ranking greenhouse gas emitter. In other words, we can't stop climate change without transforming Indonesia's palm oil industry.
In Indonesia, deforestation represents 61% of all greenhouse gas emissions, causing far more climate pollution than all of the country's cars and power plants combined. From 2000 to 2012, Indonesia lost more than 23,000 square miles of forest -- that's roughly the size of Norway.
The worst about the fires? More than half of them occur on peatland, a soil-like material packed with carbon made from decomposed plant matter. Fires that occur on peatland can have a global warming impact 200 times greater than fires on regular soil, releasing clouds of methane, carbon monoxide, and ozone.
Demand industry laggards PepsiCo, Starbucks, Kraft Heinz, and Unilever adopt truly responsible palm oil policy and commit to zero deforestation.
This year's haze crisis should be an electroshock for PepsiCo, Starbucks, Kraft Heinz, and Unilever. In cities all across Southeast Asia, people lived in an ochre sunless smog for weeks, making hundreds of thousands sick with respiratory infections.
The good news, we have made tons of progress this year. SumOfUs members have already pushed industry leaders such as McDonald's and KFC to adopt responsible palm oil policies and commit to protecting the rainforest. Hundreds of thousands of SumOfUs members are signing petitions, making phone calls, showing up to offline events, and leading the battle to transform the palm oil industry.
It's time for all industry giants to adopt responsible policies, transforming the industry, protecting the rainforest from destruction, and saving our planet.
Tell PepsiCo, Starbucks, Kraft Heinz, and Unilever to adopt truly responsible palm oil policies and commit to zero deforestation.
More information:
This Could Be the Worst Climate Crisis in the World Right Now, Mother Jones, 27 October 2015.
Is Indonesia's fire crisis connected to the palm oil in our snack food?, The Guardian, 23 October 2015.
Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?, The Guardian, 30 October 2015.