Europe’s Palm Oil Fight Is Hazed and Confused: David Fickling

Thick haze blotting out the sun in Singapore and Malaysia is an early warning sign that one of the world’s more ambitious attempts to bend commodity markets to political and environmental imperatives is failing.

The smoke comes from thousands of wildfires burning on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The causes of such blazes can be complex, but clearing forest to make way for palm oil has long been rampant in Southeast Asia. A combination of climatic, economic and political circumstances right now in Indonesia, the biggest producer, make conditions unusually favorable for a devastating season. For the European Union, which has struggled ...