The Wild Man of Borneo will not be pleased. The EU has admitted that its new biofuels requirements will probably mean the destruction of large swathes of rainforest in South East Asia.

In a written response to a European Parliament question, Mr Piebalgs went on to confess that without a scheme EU targets “would supplement the pressure caused by growth in palm oil use and would make an additional contribution to the pressure on tropical forests and peatlands”. Commission declarations that it plans to develop a “sustainability” scheme, similar to one applying to the logging of tropical woods, have been greeted with scepticism.Chris Davies, a British Liberal Democrat Euro-MP, doubts that any EU measures can be properly policed.’’We haven’t been able to halt the supply from rainforests of illegally felled timber so how can we have confidence that sustainability certificates would be worth the paper on which they are written?,” he asked.

This is what “concern for future generations” gets you.

As modern literature’s most famous orangutan might say, “Ook!”