The European Commission has concluded that palm oil cultivation results in deforestation and its use in transport fuel should be phased out, but environmentalists criticized it on Monday for allowing a number of exceptions. Under the new EU law, the use of more harmful biofuels will be capped at 2019 levels until 2023 and reduced to zero by 2030. The Commission proposal, designed to become law after four weeks of feedback, said 45 percent of the extra land used for palm oil production since 2008 had previously been forested, compared with 8 percent for rival oil crop soybeans and 1 percent for sunflowers and rapeseed. However, it also said producers who could show they had intensified yields may be exempt. The law has caused an uproar in palm oil producing countries. Indonesia has threatened to challenge it at the World Trade Organization, while Malaysia is looking into restricting imports of French products over French plans to remove palm oil from biofuel in 2020.

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