Agriculture plays a pivotal role in sustaining human populations, providing food, fiber, and livelihoods for billions of people worldwide. However, the agricultural sector is also a significant contributor to climate change, accounting for 18.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As the world faces the urgent challenge of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2°C, it is imperative to address the impacts of agricultural practices that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Within this broader agricultural context, the palm oil industry stands out due to its extensive environmental footprint. The expansion of palm oil plantations has been linked to deforestation, habitat loss, and significant greenhouse gas emissions, which exacerbate climate change. This is because oil palm only grows along the equatorial belt, which has a hot and humid climate favorable for oil palm growth. But it also harbors the tropical rainforest, which is being cut down to plant and expand oil palm. Despite palm oil’s economic importance, particularly in poor tropical regions, there is a notable gap in research quantifying the impacts of palm oil trade on ecosystem services. These services, such as carbon sequestration and climate regulation, nutrient retention and erosion control, are crucial for maintaining ecological balance and resilience in the face of climate change. Addressing this gap is essential for developing sustainable practices and policies that mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of palm oil production. By examining the intricate relationships between palm oil trade, ecosystem services, and carbon emissions, this research aims to provide data-driven insights to inform effective measures and policies for sustainable palm oil production. Implementing these measures is not only crucial for climate change mitigation but also for ensuring ecosystems resilience, contributing to a sustainable and climate-resilient future.In this dissertation, I investigate the impacts of palm oil on ecosystem services and take a deep dive into greenhouse gas emissions associated with crude palm oil production. I focus on Cameroon, a growing palm oil producing nation which harbors part of the Congo Basin forest and experiences fast deforestation rates. The first chapter synthesizes data from peer-reviewed and gray literature, identifying both positive and negative impacts on ecosystem services, with a predominance of negative impacts on carbon sequestration and climate regulation, habitat quality, and genetic diversity ecosystem services. Positive impacts of palm oil were recorded for only seven ecosystem services, with food provisioning being an important ecosystem service. The results highlight the ecosystem service tradeoff for economic benefit from palm oil. In the second chapter, I zoom in on particular ecosystem services (carbon sequestration and climate regulation, soil retention and nutrient retention) and quantified how oil palm expansion impacts ecosystem service change. I found that future oil palm expansion into tropical forests can further reduce the provision of ecosystem services by up to 40% of what is currently lost. In the third chapter, I focus on quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from different sources along the palm oil life cycle. I found that the greatest sources of emissions from palm oil production are generated from land conversion, palm oil mill effluent from the milling process and fertilizer use on the farms. Based on these major emissions sources, in the fourth chapter, I extrapolate the emissions to all mill categories in South West, a major palm oil producing region which contains two palm oil production basins. Large industrial palm oil mills are responsible for the biggest portion of emissions compared to smaller manual and semi-mechanized palm oil mills. Also, current emissions could increase by close to 300% in the next ten years if oil palm continues to expand into tropical forest and current milling practices remain unchanged. Results from this dissertation highlights the importance and avenues for intervention for sustainable practices to mitigate climate change impacts. This study underscores the necessity of integrating comprehensive environmental strategies into policy frameworks to foster a sustainable and climate-resilient future.