BAN PAYS TRIBUTE TO LATE WOMEN’S RIGHTS CHAMPION HELVI SIPILÄ

BAN PAYS TRIBUTE TO LATE WOMEN'S RIGHTS CHAMPION HELVI SIPILÄ
New York, May 20 2009 2:00PM
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today paid tribute to Helvi Sipilä of Finland, a renowned women's rights advocate and former United Nations official, who passed away on 15 May at the age of 94.

"Ms. Sipilä powerfully demonstrated the effectiveness of women's leadership," Mr. Ban said in a statement issued by his spokesperson.

"She has left a legacy which serves as a reminder that no effort should be spared to ensure the equal participation of women in decision-making in all areas of life."

The "lifelong champion of the rights of women" served as Secretary-General of the first World Conference on Women in 1975 in Mexico City.

She was also the first woman to hold the rank of Assistant Secretary-General at the UN, where she served in different capacities for many years, including as the Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Ms. Sipilä remained active after retiring from the UN and was the first woman to run for president in Finland in 1982.
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[Press-releases] Neste Oil’s plans for global leadership in palm oil diesel will drive massive rainforest destruction and climate change

Neste Oil's plans for global leadership in palm oil diesel will drive massive rainforest destruction and climate change

PORVOO, FINLAND – 12 May, 2009: This morning, 32 Greenpeace activists from Finland and Sweden are demonstrating in a palm oil diesel refinery of Neste Oil in Porvoo, Finland, where they hung a banner with the text 'Neste Oil – destroying the rainforests'. Neste Oil, an oil refining company largely owned by the Finnish government, is set - over the next three years - to become the world's largest consumer of palm oil. This expansion will lead to massive deforestation and contribute to global warming.

Palm oil production is the leading cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia; the clearance and burning of rainforests and peatlands for oil palm plantations releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. As a result, Indonesia is now the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. This rampant deforestation is also pushing species like the orang-utan and the Sumatran tiger to the brink of extinction.

Greenpeace is urging the Finnish government to use its influence to stop Neste Oil using palm oil, and not to subsidise palm oil for fuel in the future. The most significant way to reduce transport emissions is to make cars more energy efficient and to develop a low-energy and low-carbon transport system.

Neste Oil uses palm oil as the main component of the NExBTL-diesel and markets it as an environmentally-friendly alternative to fossil fuels. This 'green' marketing contradicts the warnings that climate scientists issued last year that palm oil grown on deforested land is many times more damaging to the climate than conventional fuels.

The company has publicly announced its plans to dramatically scale up its production and has recently invested in new NExBTL refineries in Finland, Singapore and the Netherlands, due online in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively. If these plans go ahead, the company will require at least 1.5 million metric tons of palm oil a year, making it the biggest single consumer of palm oil worldwide. Based on current yields, this increase in demand would require at least 325,000 hectares of oil palm plantations, equivalent to an area significantly larger than Luxembourg.

"Palm oil biodiesel is not a solution to climate change. It actually makes the problem worse if rainforests are cut down to grow the palm oil to fuel our cars. Neste Oil's expansion plans are a major climate threat increasing the pressure for deforestation in Southeast Asia and endangering species like the orang-utan," said Greenpeace Nordic palm oil campaigner, Maija Suomela.

"If the Finnish government is serious about tackling climate change, it must stop investing in forest destruction and instead invest in renewable energy solutions, such as waste-based raw materials, and provide significant funding for rainforest protection."

Neste Oil claims to source all of its palm oil from established plantations in Malaysia. When asked by Greenpeace, the company refused to provide any evidence of traceability in its entire supply chain from the plantation to the refinery. It is also failing to provide any indication of where it intends to source future palm oil supply. The Swedish gas company OKQ8 has already refused to sell Neste Oil's palm oil diesel and a recent trial planned for Stockholm's ferry traffic was cancelled in December.

Greenpeace is calling on Finland to contribute almost € 1 billion every year, by 2020, to developing countries such as Indonesia, so that they can better cope with the effects of climate change and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by protecting forests and developing clean energy supply.

This is its share of € 110 billion that the EU and other rich countries must invest as part of the new global climate deal in Copenhagen, to be agreed at the end of the year.

NEW FINNISH-UN PARTNERSHIP AIMS TO HELP DEVELOPING COUNTRIES PROTECT FORESTS

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Government of Finland have launched a new four-year, $14 million programme aimed at helping developing countries protect their forest resources and tackle climate change.

The "Sustainable Forest Management in a Changing Climate" programme also seeks to improve forest data collection and analysis as well as management skills in selected developing countries for sustainable forest management, according to a news release issued by FAO.

"FAO is very grateful to the Finnish Government for having the foresight to realise just how important this work is and for providing the financial, technical and political support to carry it out," said Jan Heino, FAO's Assistant Director-General for Forestry.

"It is vital that we strengthen the information base for sustainable forest management so that developing countries are able to manage their trees and forests based on timely and reliable information," he said.

Three to six pilot countries will be selected in the coming weeks to participate in the programme.

According to the FAO, sustainable forest management could become a means of creating millions of 'green' jobs, thus helping to reduce poverty and improve the environment. Since forests and trees are vital storehouses of carbon, such an investment would also make a major contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

"The Finnish contribution will allow FAO to strengthen the capacity of developing countries to gather information on forest resources and land-use change, forest uses and users and to formulate more consistent land-use and livelihoods policies not only to reduce an important cause of climate change but also to mitigate its impacts," stated Jim Carle, Chief of FAO's Forest Resources Development Service.

The recently published FAO State of the World's Forests 2009 report found that 7.3 million hectares of forests were lost every year between 2000 and 2005. In addition, the global economic crisis has led to a decrease in demand for wood, shrinking investments in forest industries and forest management.

Around 18 per cent of global CO2 emissions stem from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, a figure comparable to the total annual carbon dioxide emissions of the United States and China, according to the agency.

FAO is one of three UN agencies – along with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) – that form the UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) initiative, designed to combat climate change through creating incentives to reverse the trend of deforestation.

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