Malaysia’s green role

THE Centre for Governance and Political Studies shared a study recently that said about nine cities in Malaysia will be flooded by the time we reach 2050. And it is estimated that it would cost trillions of dollars to build defences against nature’s wrath.

Yet, there are low-hanging fruits and measures that city-states could and should embrace as a matter of urgency, if we are to contribute to the fight against climate change.

First, green mobility needs to be intensified. By now, Malaysia should already be a showcase of green mobility instead of still trialling diesel-electric buses and cars. Green mobility can be vastly improved by introducing bicycle lanes in strategic locations. Electric bicycles have been proven to help reduce air pollution problems by 30%-50%. Also, they are cheaper to maintain than cars and require fewer resources to manufacture.

I’m sure many have suffered freezing temperatures in office environments. Malaysia could vastly improve its energy efficiency by mandating that temperatures in office buildings or malls be set at a minimum of 27°C.

Worldwide, it has been estimated that climate change can be addressed by powering the world with renewable energy by 2050, combined with reforestation efforts. The fact that we are located near the Equator gives us immense opportunity to expand our use of renewable solar energy. We have enough land area to generate significant amounts of electricity from the sun – 150-200 megawatts of ground- mounted solar power could be deployed per square kilometre. But are we doing enough?

While Malaysia’s contribution to global warming is comparatively smaller than other larger economies, we have a lot of potential and a significant role to play in addressing the impacts of climate change. The longer we delay our actions, the less time we have to act.