Thank you to the speaker of the house, Miss Sara. Our wise judge, Miss Eugenie, the
timekeeper, my worthy leader, Mr Aiman and not to forget the government side.
Before giving my opinion on today’s topic of debate, which is “we are too late on global climate
change”. I would like to rebut the government’s Deputy Prime Minister’s point on why we’re too
late on climate change. Earlier, the Deputy Prime Minister argued that we’re too late on climate
change since it would require governments to cash out a huge amount of money to lower the
impact of climate change. Well, this argument is surely not true and can be considered invalid
since the government can lower the impact of climate change without costing their arms and
legs. This can be seen in the early days of the spread of the Covid-19 disease. Whereby in Italy,
2 weeks of lockdown had caused the busy canals of Venice to become empty. This had
contributed to reduced boat traffic at canals in Venice and lowered the carbon emission rate all
at once. Similar to the case of Italy, Malaysia had also experienced a close result to Italy. The
Movement Control Order (MCO) which was introduced in early 2020 by the government had
reduced vehicle traffic on highways which also reduced carbon emissions in Malaysia by 9.7%.
In this case, ladies and gentlemen, did the government of Italy and Malaysia spend a huge
amount of money to lower carbon emissions? No, they did not. Meanwhile, in China, industrial
operations were halted nationwide and travel restrictions were also imposed to curb the spread
of Covid-19. According to a report done by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in
Finland, these restrictions have contributed to a 25% drop in China’s carbon dioxide emissions
in over four weeks. Again, did they cash out any huge amounts of money to lower the carbon
emissions? No, they used what they already had and still managed to achieve an excellent
result.
Hence, through these examples provided, we can see that it does not require the government to
spend a huge amount of money to curb climate change. Instead, what the government needs to
do is to implement a governmental policy which will contribute to lowering the impacts of climate
change. Governmental policies refer to a systematic plan, which is usually established by a
government, to solve relevant and real-world problems. This plan is directed by a concept and
executed through programmes or a course of action created to respond to societal issues.
Throughout the last couple of years, we can see that government policies have been proven to
be helpful to combat real-life problems since it provides a detailed guideline on how to achieve a
certain goal or address certain issues such as human rights issue, health issues, and economic
issues and even environmental issues.
Speaking of governmental policies, the government of Malaysia and other nations’ governments
had implemented various policies which were from time to time proven to be helpful in reducing
the effects of climate change.
For instance, the Kyoto Protocol, which is an agreement established to help lower the number of
greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, is one of the earliest global efforts in slowing
down climate change. Since 1997, 191 nations had backed this agreement including Malaysia.
This argument originally aims to reduce carbon emissions globally by 4.2%. However, after 4
years of the signature of the agreement, the parties that were involved in the agreement
managed to reduce the carbon emissions by 11.2% and the rate of carbon emission continues
to decline even years later. Due to its success in mitigating climate change, this agreement is
considered by many as one of the most successful global efforts on climate change.
Other than that, the government of ten ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, had also signed
the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in the year 2002. This is the first
agreement in the world that unites a group of neighbouring governments to combat haze
pollution caused by forest and land fires. Not to mention, this agreement is also regarded as a
global role model for tackling transboundary issues due to its effectiveness in containing carbon
emissions rates in ASEAN countries.
Meanwhile, on a national level, Malaysia had passed the Environment Quality Act 1974 which is
responsible for preventing, decreasing, controlling the rate of pollution and enhancing the
environment in Malaysia. Through the establishment of this legislation, our government was
able to set up the Department of Environment (DOE) and appoints its Director General, who is
responsible to advise the Ministers regarding the pertaining act and also advise them on matters
that involve environmental issues so that the government is able to make continuous
improvement and make better decisions to ease climate changes in Malaysia. The DOE was
also responsible for punishing those who were involved in activities that may cause harm to the
environment in Malaysia. Through these measures that were taken, we can see that Malaysia
and other countries were very committed in managing the impacts of climate change.
Consequently, ladies and gentlemen, based on the evidence that was given by me in my
argument, it is clear that we’re not too late on climate change since there had been numerous
actions that had been done by Malaysia and other countries to lower the impact of climate
change such as implementing global governmental policies and national governmental policies
which consistently shows effectiveness in helping the efforts of reducing the impact of climate
change. So, I would strongly disagree with the government’s side on the claim that we’re too
late for climate change. That’s all from me, the Deputy Opposition Leader, Imran Dhuha, thank
you.