Mat Hasan wants govt to get serious on climate change

 

Umno deputy president Mohamad Hasan has called for the government to take an aggressive approach in fighting drastic climate change following the massive floods that hit Malaysia last month.

The government needs to review logging and forest management policies and avoid single-use plastics, he said in a statement today.

"Malaysia needs an aggressive action to address the causes of climate change. Prolonged droughts, worsening water crisis, uncertain rainy seasons, extraordinary floods and large-scale pollution will become a new norm without any radical action being taken in environmental policies.

"We need something that is able to shake (the country) in our sustainability policy, something that is extraordinary and is able to create double impact, not something 'incremental and reactive'," he said.

The significant increase in threat to public security caused by massive floods and the Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest lesson learnt in 2021, added Mohamad.

"Not only were there casualties, but both incidents have pushed millions of people further into poverty due to job losses, closure of educational opportunities as well as difficulty in developing businesses and entrepreneurship.

Clear policies

"The people were insecure. Loss of sources of income, properties, destruction of infrastructure and limited mobility caused by strict health protocols are significant health threats to the people," added Mohamad.

"Malaysians need security guarantees via clear policies and concrete action. A government that cannot provide security guarantees is a government that fails to understand the needs of its people," he said.

"All of this demands a paradigm shift in the management of national security policy," he said.

"Achieving carbon neutrality in the energy sector by 2050 is simply unrealistic without taking a radical approach in managing the forest and rivers, formulating development plans and most importantly, changing the lifestyle of the general public.

"It is timely for Malaysia to review the logging and forest management policies; stop the use of single-use plastics; make it mandatory for the migration of all developments into energy-efficient technologies; shift to fully electric vehicles by 2035," he said.

Climate change

"Telling the world that Malaysia is not affected by climate change is a very regrettable, untrue and dishonest statement of denial," he said, without naming any leader.

In April 2021, Environment and Water Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man courted flak while attempting to explain why Malaysia was not invited to the US-organised Climate Action Summit.

He said Malaysia wasn't invited because it's not a country categorised as vulnerable to climate change. - Mkini