Bernama 10 Jun 10;
KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's environmental agenda under the Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP) will be protecting the environment while harnessing economic value from the process.
To reach the goal, the government is placing focus on operationalising the National Policy on the Environment (2002), the National Green Technology Policy (2009) and the National Climate Change Policy (2009).
According to the 10MP tabled in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, the key to sustainability is a proper valuation of our environmental resources.
It states that the biggest risk to sustainability arises from the underpricing of resources, particularly oil and gas as well as water.
Thus, during the 10MP period, the energy policy will move towards market pricing of gas by 2015 while the water tariff will be restructured towards full cost recovery.
Similarly, there are significant opportunities in monetising or creating value from environmental endowments.
The report states that initiatives to finance and promote sustainability measures include introducing Feed-in Tariff (FiT) to help finance renewable energy investments, promoting projects eligible for carbon credits and promoting funding for green technology investments.
As a first step in creating a comprehensive ecosystem for environmental sustainability, the government has introduced the Affirm framework.
Affirm, which is the acronym for awareness, faculty, finance, infrastructure, research and marketing, is an outline of the government's approach toward the effort.
The two main areas of environmental focus under the 10MP is developing a road map for climate-resilient growth and enhancing conservation of the nation's ecological assets.
The report says that to brace the impact of climate change, Malaysia will adapt strategies to protect economic growth and development factors, as well as mitigate strategies to reduce emission of greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, to reduce greenhouse gas emission, the government has embarked on several programmes which focus on five areas:
* creating stronger incentives for investments in renewable energy, which includes the introduction of a one per cent FiT
* promoting energy efficiency to encourage productive use of energy
* improving solid waste management
* conserving forests
* reducing emissions to improve air quality. This includes emissions from motor vehicles, industries as well as preventing haze pollution from land and forest fires.
In the bid to protect biodiversity and habitats, the Central Forest Spine of 4.32 million hectares across Malaysia will be implemented under the 10MP.
-- BERNAMA
