AND BOOSTS ECONOMY
fuels such as coal.
The 2016 Energy Commission report stated that 24.63 million tonnes of coal were used at power stations.
In Peninsular Malaysia, coal is imported from abroad. Indonesia is the biggest supplier at 56 per cent, followed by Australia (30 per cent), Russia (nine per cent) and South Africa (five per cent).
A study on energy consumption shows that the world will experience a natural gas shortage in 60 years. We have enough coal to last 130 years. heavily prone to hydro-meteorological disasters.
Climate change, aggravated by phenomena like El Nino, is not the only driver of disaster risk, but is the joker in the pack as the world tries to understand how it combines with other key risk factors such as poor risk governance, rapid and unplanned urbanisation, poverty and environmental degradation.
Much of this understanding and better planning needs to be done now at the local level. Adopting the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction two years ago, UN member states agreed to increase the number of national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020.
These strategies will be the bedrock for decreasing disaster losses by 2030 through reducing
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development director Mario Pezzini, who is also special adviser to the centre’s secretary-general on development, said to reduce climate change and facilitate a transition to a low-carbon economy, it is important for Asean countries to explore the potentials for renewable energy.
This is in line with one of the strategic thrusts of the National Climate Change Policy, which consolidates the energy policy incorporating management practices mortality, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure.
It is imperative that we break down silos that exist between the exponents of disaster risk reduction, whose remit extends beyond climate-related hazards, and those whose focus is climate action.
As these national and local plans are put in place, there is an opportunity to ensure joint action across the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, including the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and an obligation to avoid duplication of effort.
The achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to poverty, hunger, climate action, sanitation and clean water, depends on this.
Reducing greenhouse gas that enhance renewable energy and energy efficiency. The development of renewable energy sources can reduce the impact of climate change.
The government should focus on developing renewable energy as it is more profitable in reducing the cost of importing fossil fuels. It is also safer and can reduce carbon emissions due to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity.
NUR IMANI ABDULLAH
Water and Energy Consumers Association, Kuala Lumpur
emissions and keeping global temperature well below 2°C are the greatest long-term contribution that governments, local governments and the private sector can make to disaster risk reduction.
Meanwhile, local planning for improved disaster risk management helps create a grassroots, societal demand for action and ever rising ambition nationally and globally for climate action above and beyond existing pledges.
ROBERT GLASSER
United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for Disaster Risk Reduction
PATRICIA ESPINOSA Executive secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change