As subsidies like the RTFO prioritise the processing of used cooking oil into fuels (a valid and logical aim in itself) there is a risk of generating a market for UCO so strong that it threatens to destabilise established eastern markets where Europe sources its UCO.
The demand for UCO doesn’t diminish in the East just because demand has grown in the West, and so those people in the East have done the most economically logical thing in the face of increasing prices: they have found the next best, cheaper alternative: palm oil.
A lesson, if there ever was one, that climate change is a global issue which requires global solutions.
The report's authors are concerned that since it is more profitable to sell Asian UCO to Europe for fuel rather than feed it to animals, it is likely being replaced by virgin palm oil which is cheaper to buy.
