30/10/2009 (Biodiesel Magazine) - With more than 4,000 delegates convening in Bangkok to discuss climate change over the next days, World Growth, a nongovernmental organization and palm oil advocate, decided it was the time to launch its campaign. World Growth’s “Palm Oil Green Development Campaign” will focus on “setting the record straight and correcting the falsehoods and misconceptions” propagated by others like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Indonesia would be exactly the kind of country that World Growth represents: a poor, developing nation that is also one of the world’s leading palm oil producers. “Environmental groups have made palm oil a poster child in a wider campaign to pressure developing countries to stop converting forest land to productive agro-industries,” World Growth said. “Developing nations must be allowed the chance to grow and develop without political intervention by environmental groups or developed nations.”

In a speech, a senior delegate for Indonesia told the U.N. that his country was a victim of climate change and “would like to do something to prevent it from worsening,” Agency France Presse reported on Monday.

“While there have been some very general statements made here, I find it hard to imagine Indonesia agreeing to anything that inhibit their ability to support economic growth,” said Alan Oxley, CEO of World Growth.