A crisis we all need to work on urgently

MALAYSIA is blessed, really.

While we do have natural disasters, we haven’t faced anything on the terrible scale of the Feb 6 earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria, where the death toll has crossed 24,000.

Even the devastating Asian Tsunami – the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake-triggered tsunami – which left more than 200,000 dead around the region, left us comparatively better off, though tragically, 68 people died here.

However, the planet is facing the existential crisis of climate change, and that will undoubtedly exacerbate disasters like floods and landslides that are happening more and more frequently in Malaysia.

The word “unprecedented” is used a lot nowadays: We have faced unprecedented floods and raging storms, the worst in decades, and the earth seems to slip and slide so much more than before.

Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has acknowledged that “against the backdrop of the scientific evidence of the change in weather patterns that are currently occurring, we are also witnessing the consequences of such alterations via the increase in natural disasters such as floods, landslides, and rising heat levels affecting the people”.

On Tuesday, Nik Nazmi announced that his ministry is looking at revising and strengthening climate policies to put Malaysia on the right path in combating climate change.

He said it intended to de- velop a Nationally Determined Contributions roadmap and action plan that will chart the actions needed to achieve the country’s climate action goals.

Nationally Determined Contributions are a non-binding national plan highlighting climate change mitigation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As the minister said, Malaysia’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is only 0.69%, but that fraction adds to the whole, and climate change, unfortunately, doesn’t affect countries according to how much they pollute.

It’s great to have the words “climate change” back in a ministry’s name, and it’s good to know that the minister has his eye on the ball.

But, as Nik Nazmi pointed out recently, fighting climate change is not only the government’s job. While national-level policies have to come from the government, the public and private sectors should also be involved.

An example he used was the Penang Nature-Based Climate Adaptation Programme, which addresses “heat stress and flooding issues while strengthening social resilience and institutional capacity”.

The programme includes the participation of stakeholders from civil society and vulnerable groups in the state.

Apart from official programmes and campaigns, the rakyat can do a lot at an individual level. We can start simply by not using plastic bags or buying plastic bottles of water; we can sort and recycle our rubbish – really, the list is endless and information is easily available on what you and I can do about climate change.

This is a crisis that all of us need to work on urgently.