MALAYSIA has to take climate change seriously and end the “business as usual” mindset to help global efforts in overcoming the existential threat.
“Malaysia has been steadily dropping in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) ranking, from 39th spot in 2016 to 56th this year.
“The drop in ranking is extremely disappointing as its show the lack political will and action to curtail carbon emission,” Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) central working committee member Sharan Raj told FocusM.
In October 2019, Umno MP Khairy Jamaluddin lashed out at then Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin for not doing enough to address climate change despite having a dedicated ministry for it.
Khairy, then shadow minister of the portfolio, said that the ministry was addressing climate change at an ad hoc basis, without addressing issues such as cleaning up the ocean and conserving coral reefs.
About a quarter of global countries, including Malaysia, is responsible for 90% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission.
Targetting both governments, Sharan said that Malaysia came up with good policies on addressing climate change since 2016 but did not expand them into concrete action plan.
“We came up with good policies over the years but we did not follow up. One of the problems is we kept building more fossil-fuel based power plants and made little investment on renewable energy (RE).
“So, our ranking slipped. Malaysia is one of the top 60 polluters in the world. If you take up the European Union (EU) as a single entity, we will immediately become one of the top 30 polluters,” he said.
Invest in circular economy
Touching on Budget 2021, Sharan said that there was no mention of any substantial idea on how to address climate change, to build a more and environmental-friendly Malaysia.
On that note, Sharan, who is also PSM’s Environmental & Climate Crisis bureau chief, said that Malaysia has a unique advantage compared to developed nations in dealing with climate change due to its vast forest cover.
“Due to our massive forest cover, 70% of our carbon emission is absorbed by our environment. So, we just come up with a solid plan, we can slash 30% of our emission, by 2025.
“With that, we can become carbon neutral in just five years. This is an advantage for us as many developed nations need time up to 2050 to reduce its emission as they have lost much of their forest cover,” he opined.
Offering solutions, Sharan said that the first thing the Government should do is to impose a moratorium on fossil-fuel based power plants and focus more on RE policies.
Elaborating, he also said that Malaysia needs to invest more on circular economy by recycling waste from industries and use it back to boost local economy.
“This will effectively reduce imports and create new jobs for our people.
Sharan added that the Government should also reduce oil & gas extraction work, gradually.
“Petronas alone contributes to about 7% of our local carbon emission. So, if we can embark on gradual reduction of oil& gas extraction, we can reduce our nation’s emission by 7%,” Sharan remarked.
Malaysia is a signatory of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Paris Accord) in 2015 and has promised to reduce GHG by 45%, by 2030. – Jan 16, 2021
