ASTANA (Kazakhstan): Every social media post in support of green growth in the next three months will lead the Government to put in more solar panels to generate electricity.
“Each supportive post that helps to propagate #MyButterflyEffect will make us increase our commitment by one watt,” declared Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili as he unveiled the “1 Post = 1 Watt” pledge at the Malaysia Energy Forum.
The forum was organised here on the sidelines of Expo 2017, a three-month-long event themed “Future Energy”.
As of the end of April, Malaysia’s photovoltaic generation capacity that came as a result of the incentive called “feed-in tariff” stood at 314 megawatts.
The ministry will tabulate the number of posts on greenfuturemalaysia.com or EXPO17Malaysia on Facebook at the end of September before deciding how much capacity it will add.
Dr Ongkili also took the opportunity to invite his counterparts from more than 100 nations participating at Expo 2017 to do something similar.
“As an emerging market leader, Malaysia is in a position to inspire the world. We believe that a relatively small nation like us can inspire changes in green growth on a global scale because green growth is in our nature.
“With the #MyButterflyEffect campaign and the simple question of #Wattif (a play on ‘what if?’), we have set in motion a butterfly effect that will hopefully result in a world powered by green energy,” he said at the conclusion of the forum themed “Tapping the Potential of the Asean Energy Market”.
The forum saw the participation of 150 Malaysian and foreign delegates from the government and private sectors.
Malaysia also inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on sustainable development with Kazakhstan yesterday.
The MoU will see both countries identifying ways of implementing programmes in areas of green technology, including renewable energy, green buildings, smart cities, and carbon emission mitigation.
Dr Ongkili signed on behalf of Malaysia, while Kazakhstan was represented by its Vice Energy Minister Gani Sadibekov.
“This MoU will contribute to Malaysia’s aim of securing at least RM1bil in trade and investments by the end of Expo 2017.
“Malaysia has a lot of experience in the green technology field, which can contribute to Kazakhstan realising its goal for renewable energy to contribute to half of its energy needs by 2050,” added Dr Ongkili.
Kazakhstan relies heavily on an extractive economy underpinned by exports of oil, gas, and other minerals. It currently imports wood, marble, electronic chips and palm oil from Malaysia.
Trade between Malaysia and Kazakhstan stood at RM429.5mill (US$100mil) in 2015. The figure dropped slightly to RM360.7mil (US$84mil) last year due to exchange fluctuations.
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