Palm oil --- Good point - the conditions of production matter quite a bit. It's part of what makes palm oil so interesting. Palm oil, per unit area, is incredibly efficient: https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-things-know-about-palm-oil. Less land is needed than for other common oil crops.

However, where it is grown is incredibly biodiverse, and the forests emit a lot of carbon dioxide when they are cleared for palm oil plantations. So, even if less area is used than other oil crops (like soy), the impact is high.

Another interesting (and complicating) factor is about the cause of deforestation. Certifications, like RSPO, prevent palm oil from being grown on deforested land. But, this doesn't stop cropland from being turned into palm plantation -- cropland isn't forest. However, there still might need to be cropland that is grown, and so deforestation occurs to produce crops. In this case, palm oil is not directly causing deforestation, but deforestation is occurring, in part due to the land demand for palm oil (see the indirect land change example above).

Source author: Levi Helm lthelm@asu.edu