Abstract:Brazil aims to increase palm oil production to meet the growing national and global demand of edible oil and biodiesel without displacing or compromising their environmental goals of preserving environmentally and culturally significant areas. In an effort to meet these goals, the Brazilian senate approved legislation to expand oil palm plantations on previously deforested lands. The purpose of this study is to show the areas that are likely to be converted to oil palm under different enforcement scenarios of the new legislation and its associated carbon emissions. Using the UPLAN land use change model and spatial data, this study estimated the impact of land conversion under three different scenarios based on levels of enforcement (none, some, strict enforcement). This study found that converting 22.5 million hectares of land can produce approximately 20 billion gallons (110 billion liters) of biodiesel a year, of which 22-71% of area can come from forest land, conservation units, wetland and indigenous areas. Depending on the level of policy enforcement, the land cover change leads to 14-84 g [CO2e] emissions for each MJ of biodiesel produced. In scenarios 1 and 2, these emissions alone, without emissions from production, process, refining and combustion, are higher than the carbon intensity of the biodiesel that it intends to displace for lowering GHG emissions. This study shows that policy enforcement of oil palm production can have a tremendous impact on land conservation and carbon emissions.

Note:Master's Thesis