Palm oil can be used in everything from cosmetics to fuel, and is cheap and efficient to produce. But this versatile crop has a dark side — its incredible popularity has caused widespread environmental destruction.

Palm oil production is the leading driver of tropical deforestation, which accounts for 18 percent of all global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Clearing Indonesian forests is a particular problem, because they store more carbon per hectare than the Brazilian Amazon thanks to their "carbon-rich" soils, according to US-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
Land clearing for palm oil was also linked with giant fires in Indonesia in 2015 that became one of the world's biggest climate disasters in terms of greenhouse gas pollution. The fires released more heat-trapping gases than all of Germany's annual emissions from fossil fuels.