KUALA LUMPUR: Fact: for every litre of petrol we burn, we emit 2.5kg of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
On Thursday, the United Nations reported that carbon emissions in Malaysia have increased by 221 per cent since 1990, the highest growth rate among the world’s top polluters, and urged the government to control climate-changing gases more vigorously.
With 0.4 per cent of the world’s population, Malaysia’s 27 million people accounted for 0.6 per cent of global emissions.
“This means that each Malaysian discharged 7.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Malaysia has the third highest carbon emission among the Asean countries per capita after Singapore and Brunei,” said Gurmit Singh, executive director of the Centre for Environment, Technology & Development.
At this rate, car owners need to plant 17 trees every year to counter the greenhouse effect of their cars, the equivalent of 17,710km of car emissions.
“Everyone can make a difference. If you can car pool, do so.
“Try not to drive during the weekends and use public transport instead.
“This is the best way for individuals to help the environment, as the common laymen have no control over the manufacturing sector,” Gurmit said.
But transportation is not the only cause of the increase in carbon emissions.
In the last 14 years, the country has seen major growth in the automotive, wood, iron, steel, aluminium, paper and pulp, ceramic, glass and cement industries.
All these are large power consumers and also produce large carbon emissions which have not been reduced.
“The government has to be careful of energy intensive industries. We waste energy six times more than Japan.
“The Malaysian public is wasteful too. As our electricity usage is heavily subsidised, it encourages more usage.
“Right now, people don’t feel it because fuel is subsidised by the government, but there will come a time when the government won’t be able to subsidise,” said Gurmit.
Universiti Malaya Centre For Climate Change Affairs head Prof Dr Khairulmaini Osman Salleh said the public should think of alternatives to high fossil fuel consumption.
Citing the industrial sector as emitting the highest levels of greenhouse gases, he said the main culprit was the transport industry.
“We may have many industries with ISO 4000 certification, which manufacture the environmentally friendly way, but if the transport industry still utilises as much fossil fuel as it does today, it will be a wasted cause.”
He said nothing much has been adopted to reduce greenhouse gases in the transport industry since unleaded fuel was introduced.
Global Environment Centre director Faizal Parish said though the government has initiated dialogues and was looking into renewable energy, it was clear that the government needed to take urgent steps to address the issue.
“Clearly not enough is being done.
“There is a need to improve energy efficiency so that carbon emission can be significantly reduced.”
Aside from fossil fuel used in transportation, industries and in generating electricity, carbon emissions also result from land usage, such as burning trees to clear land for agricultural or residential purposes.
“Malaysia has a large amount of degraded lands, such as logged- over forests and abandoned agricultural land.
“If we can rehabilitate them, turn them back to forests, it can absorb the carbon emissions and offset the emissions from industrial and land use,” he said.