08/02/2010 (New Energy World Network.com) - World Growth, a pro-development NGO, has welcomed the leaked news that the EU Commission has chosen to endorse palm oil as a biofuel. Green groups WWF and Friends of the Earth contend that the palm oil process is damaging to the environment as it leads to deforestation.

‘World Growth commends the European Commission for rejecting Green propaganda about palm oil and moving to correctly define palm oil plantations as ‘continuously forested areas.’ It turned down a demand by environmentalists to prohibit biodiesel derived from oil palm by regulating that palm oil was not a plantation forest,’ said Alan Oxley, former Australian diplomat and co-founder of World Growth.

World Growth was formed by Alan Oxley and Henrik Rasmussen, the son of former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Oxley previously worked for Malaysian logging and palm oil giant Rimbunan Hijau.

‘Last week’s leaked government documents validate research released by World Growth over the past year. Palm oil uses a mere one-tenth of the land and just a third of the energy (eg fertilizer) required by European vegetable oils crops to produce the same quantity of oil. It is also effective at absorbing CO2 and has a wonderful record at reducing poverty,’ said Oxley.