Context Setting – The rising global CO2 level
Carbon dioxide is a straightforward combination of what it exactly sounds like; 1 carbon atom with 2 oxygen atoms attached to it. Under normal temperature, carbon dioxide stays in a gaseous state with CO2 as its chemical equation. Based on Figure 1, it is obvious that the emission of Carbon Dioxide shows an increasing trend, and the excessive amount of Carbon Dioxide had contributed to the worsening of greenhouse effect, as well as climate change.
Looking back to February whereby a storm had rampaged several low-lying areas such as Kota Samarahan, Lundu and Serian at Sarawak, who would imagine that nearly the same time, Malaysians at Kedah were looking at the sky anticipating rainfalls after 3000 water taps ran out of water? Climate change, a change in unusual weather found in a certain area is undeniably a global issue that has successfully drawn the attention of all populaces. “We are already seeing about a 10% – 15% drop in yield annually,” says Dr. Renard Siew. The fact that Malaysia is already experiencing the consequences of climate change in the agriculture field makes ignorance completely impossible, which has further protruded the urgency of this prominent concern to be solved instantly.
Figure 1: Malaysia Carbon Dioxide Emission per Capita
Major contributors of the rising CO2 level
Transportation
According to a report released by the Malaysian Department of Environment, Malaysian CO2 emissions are mainly caused by transportation activities (97.1%). Sources include emissions from motor vehicles both individually owned vehicles as well as businesses owned vehicles. There are over 19 million registered vehicles in the country with the total estimation of emission released of over 1.4 million metric tonnes in 2008. The breakdowns of vehicles in the country are as follows:
Figure 2: Total Carbon Dioxide Emission released in Malaysia
The country will expect an increased number of registered motor vehicles in years to come and with this will certainly come with an increased emissions of CO2 released into the country’s atmosphere. This is supported by the news released by the Malaysia Automotive Association, whereby the number of consumer vehicles sales increased by 19.8% in the first half of 2010 and there is a steady increase of total vehicles sales of estimated 10-20% per year for the past five years. Although the increase numbers are seen as good for the economy, but it certainly adds up to the total CO2 emissions produced by road vehicles in Malaysia.
Air Pollution
According to WHO, air pollution is closely associated with climate change. Carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases, is the major culprit. It is released massively at the industrial areas mostly because of the unplanned industrial growth or the usage of outdated technology. Industrial activities like the burning of coal in Peninsular Malaysia has increased the release of greenhouse gases throughout the years. The untreated gases will then release to the environment, heating up the surrounding temperature. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon gases into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.
The other pollutant is none other than Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which are used in aerosol propellants and refrigerants. CFCs float into the upper atmosphere, break down into chlorine molecules, which then reacts with the oxygen atoms in ozone, deteriorating the ozone layer. The ozone is a layer of gas containing various form of oxygen, constantly reacting in the presence of UV radiation allowing non-harmful UV rays to pass through. When it is depleted, UV rays go straight to the Earth’s surface, heating up the lower atmosphere hence causing climate change. One chlorine can destroy more than a hundred thousand ozone molecules, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. In short, air pollution caused by greenhouse gases increases the general temperature, leading to climate change.
From these facts may conclude that both deforestation and air pollution has led to and worsen the situation of climate change.
Deforestation
Deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, ranging from 6% to 17%. Malaysia is one of the countries with highest rate of forest lost among the worlds. These are mainly due to the excessive illegal logging, urbanization, agricultural fires, forest conversion for plantations and other forms of agriculture. This non-sustainable forest opening, or development has led to numerous environmental problems, such as soil erosion, landslides and flooding which severely affecting the biodiversity.
Figure 3: Tree Cover Loss in Malaysia
The United Nation had stated that Malaysia’s deforestation rate is accelerating faster than the rest of the countries. Being well-known as the “carbon-fixed” factory, the forest has been playing an important role in the carbon cycle. “One tree can absorb more than a hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” said Diane Maceachern. The action of cutting down a tree produces approximately 24% of carbon into the atmosphere, which is greater than the total amount released by the vehicles. Palm plantation, the major cause of deforestation in Malaysia, has been carried out widely due to its extremely high market value, easily grown, and its ability to produce fruits for more than 30 years.
From 1975 to 2011, the quantity of oil palm has increased to around 5 million Ha. Meanwhile, forest fires have also been acting as a driver of deforestation in Malaysia as it is the oldest and fastest method to clear the land for oil palm plantation and other farming uses. These are all the key emitters of carbon dioxide, causing Malaysia’s forest to disappear gradually, resulting in climate change. To summarise, climate change in Malaysia has skyrocketed due to deforestation, depletion of forest cover arising from various profit-driven activities.
Potential impact
Flood
As the most frequent disaster in Malaysia (Figure 5), flooding is worsened by neither deforestation nor climate change. Global warming has been shifting the rainfall distributions, leads to a more frequent heavy rain in many areas. With the rising global temperatures due to the increased heat-trapping emissions, more water evaporated from the land and oceans. As warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour, the potential for a heavy rainfall increases, causing a flood. Flood also occurs easily due to the incohesive soil. Without any protections by the roots, it can be removed easily by the wind and rain.
The most direct impact of a flood is the devastating damages on the farmland, resulting in a drastic fall in the crop production. In between November to January 2017, the heavy rain drowns Malaysia, frequently flooding the eastern and northern states in Peninsular Malaysia like Penang, Perak, and Kedah. As the consequence, the harvest of vegetables dropped during monsoon seasons, causing a spike in prices. The income of most of the farmers is also affected. In Penang, approximately 5300 farmers, cultivating around 11,463.8ha of fruits, vegetables and paddy faced a loss of RM21,277,125, while the crops amounting 4,041ha were affected and 2,613 farmers suffered from losses reaching RM6,415,148 in Kedah. In summation, the flood caused by deforestation and the abnormal rainfall pattern has a huge impact on Malaysia’s agriculture field.
Figure 4: Natural disasters in Malaysia
Increase in Government’s expenditure
Besides, the government’s expenditure has increased due to the negative impact climate change has on the farmers. Those expenses are used on reconstructing the damaged areas and act as compensation to those whose paddy field were destroyed. It was also used on flood preventions. The federal government had allocated approximately RM1.7 mil for farmers in Penang who were affected by the floods in November in 2017. About 2000 farmers received compensation of RM876 per hectare of paddy field. RM33.4 mil had also been paid to those who suffered damage during the flood, creating the largest pay-out to flood victims in the history of Malaysia.
Flood also worsen mosquito-borne diseases. “The Zika virus has always existed in mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, it’s just it hasn’t become widespread in the part because temperatures were still moderate. Mosquitoes would die off before the virus could develop. So, with temperatures increasing, mosquitoes can really become a vector for that disease,” says Dr. Renard Siew. As a result, the government must spend more to treat these potential breeding sites by organizing integrate campaign combining fogging and ULV spraying. In 2010, Malaysia spent US$73.5 million or 0.03% of the country’s GDP on its National Dengue Vector Control Program, and 92.2% of this spending occurred in districts. To sum up, climate change has increased the government’s expenses, affecting Malaysia’s economic performance.
In brief, climate change brings disastrous consequences to a country’s agriculture field, through causing flood and increasing the government’s expenditure.
Possible mitigations
Forest Protection Project
The ‘Amazon Forest Protection Project’ organised by the Stand for Trees worldwide is highly recommended to be launched in Malaysia. This project is launched when the forest area of the size of a New York City is lost for every 48 hours and has been receiving successful outcomes in countries like Brazil and Indonesia since its commencement day. It avoids unplanned deforestation of high conservation value rainforest. The fragile ecosystem is protected by stopping rampant deforestation of the carbon-dense rainforest while allowing degraded forests to regenerate. Legal land-use permits will help in keeping the illegal loggers away, resulting in the official land titles for those villagers that have been actively participating in the forest protection. Deforestation gets critical day by day due to the lack of responsibility in the locals. With the belief where everyone can have an outsized impact on saving the climate and the tropical forest, this project also encourages local’s engagement in conserving the environment, through hiring local villagers as paid staff in various biodiversity monitoring activities.
This is an indirect way of investing back to the community by providing employment for forest protection. The local communities will also be exposed to alternative and sustainable livelihoods to ensure they do not rely on the destructive practice of clearing their resources that eventually worsen the climate conditions. This project promotes less fuelwood usage through the implementation of energy efficient cookstoves that end up with additional reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Training on sustainable agroforestry techniques will also be carried out to improve food security. Overall, the Forest Protection Project is a long-termed and persistent plan which will improve the climate change by preventing at least 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxides released into the atmosphere over the course of the 40-year project lifetime.
Montreal Protocol
Furthermore, the effort of Malaysia for being a part of the Montreal Protocol since August 1989 should be maintained to abolish the use of CFCs in certain appliances that deplete the ozone layer. This protocol is characterised by the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as “perhaps the most successful international agreement to date” as CFCs have virtually disappeared from products. Recently, Malaysia also has exceeded the goal of phasing out 10% of CFCs in 2015 by reaching a 19% reduction, which further protrudes the efficiency of this protocol. A stable framework is provided by the Montreal Protocol that allows industries to come out with long-term research and innovations. To their credit, chemicals companies have been continuously innovating and producing chemicals with no ozone depleting potential and lower global warming potential for the usage of the air conditioning and refrigeration sectors.
CFCs are old technology and currently out of patent. By transitioning to the newer, both environment and the industry can be potentially benefited due to the reasonably priced formulations with lower or no-ozone depleting. This protocol also consists of financial provisions, the Multilateral Fund to assist the countries in different phase-outs. Incremental funding is provided for developing countries to support them in meeting their compliance targets. Institutional support is also provided to help countries to build capacity within their governments to implement phase-out activities. For instance, Malaysia has been given US$6.1 million for the implementation to be done. By and large, the Montreal Protocol is doing its job well. The climate condition in Malaysia or even the globe will ameliorate if all countries continue to meet their obligations and phase out the ozone-depleting substances in the future.
Levies of Carbon Tax
In addition, carbon tax can be introduced in Malaysia to solve climate change. In 2030, the goal of generating 20% of the electricity with renewable sources has set by the Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Ministry. Carbon tax is a form of pollution tax, which is imposed on price per ton on carbon based on the quantity distributed and combusted by an industry. It will then transform into a tax on electricity, oil or natural gas. The aim of this carbon tax is to increase the cost of burning of fossil fuels so that the factories will give up on the thoughts of burning the fossil fuels due to its high cost of production.
As of 2018, 45 national and 25 sub-national have implement the carbon tax in their country to save the air pollution. For example, New Zealand is the first country that have implemented such carbon tax in 2005, where Mr. Hodgson, the Minister of New Zealand, had set the tax at NZ$11 a metric tonne of carbon emitted, which had their effort paid off with a positive outcome. After the imposition of carbon tax, energies that leads to air pollution such as oil and coal will be more expensive in comparison to the clean energies such as solar and wind. This solution is worth a try as Malaysia has been reaching out for different solutions to overcome the problem of excessive burning of fossil fuels, yet the outcome was not that satisfying.
As an illustration, Malaysia had once set up a Renewable Energy Purchase agreement. However, only 15 percent of the target had been achieved until December 2009 as the cost of renewable energy is higher than the fossil fuels. Hence, by imposing carbon tax, Malaysia’s air pollution as well as the climate change can be improved as it encourages the usage of renewable energy.
Taking everything into account, the Forest Protection Project, Montreal Protocol, and the carbon tax will improve the climate condition as they have already worked effectively in other countries.
Conclusion
In conclusion, climate change arising from deforestation and air pollutions will lead flood which eventually increases the government’s expenses to ameliorate the country’s agriculture sector. It is crucial and must be solved immediately by implementing feasible resolutions like the Forest Protection Project, Montreal Protocol and lastly, the forgone of fossil fuels. Being clear and concise, climate change is a threat to not only a country but also to our mother earth.
Therefore, government should propose policies to address potentially human-caused climate change include limits on carbon dioxide emissions from oil, coal, and natural gas and policies to support the production of renewable energy, such as wind and solar energy. On the other hand, private companies should venture into Research and Development that contribute to a greener technology, or environmentally friendly products for consumer. Also, consumers can play a crucial role in reducing emissions and slowing climate change by making more environmentally conscious purchases. If only every nation unites and strives to end most of the climate change that is occurring, the world would be a safer place to live on.
