By NNN-Bernama,
Kuala Lumpur : Ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December, the European Union (EU), through its executive branch, the European Commission (EC), has tabled a proposal for developed countries to cut their greenhouse gas emission levels by 30 per cent and below.
The EC’s proposal presents various options for increasing international funding for developing countries like Malaysia, including requiring the EU and other economic powers to help defray the costs related to reducing greenhouse gases emitted by developing nations.
The proposal suggests that developing nations should limit emission of greenhouse gases by adopting specific development strategies, which should include curbing tropical deforestation and which should be based on financial and technical support from the international community.
In a statement issued here Tuesday, the ambassador and Head of Delegation of the EC in Malaysia, Vincent Piket, said in Malaysia, the EU had been actively working with various partners on sustained forest management by fighting illegally harvested timber.
“Our co-operation will facilitate the export of Malaysian timber into the EU and this is a significant economic move since the EU is the third most important destination for Malaysian timber,” he said.
“We are also fortunate that we can capitalise on carbon trading, an eco-friendly business practice which has a total worth of 4.8 billion Ringgit (about 1.33 billion USD) in Malaysia as cited by a recent study by Pusat Tenaga Malaysia (the Malaysian Energy Centre),” he said.
The EU, which established the emission trading scheme, the first in the world, in 2005, expects a major role for emissions trading and will seek to build a global carbon market. A growing number of countries are looking to set up schemes similar to the EU carbon market.
The scheme caps overall carbon dioxide emissions but allows businesses to buy and sell credits among themselves.
Piket said the EU could not win the battle against climate change on its own but it could set a convincing example by providing concrete proposals for the international negotiations on further actions to combat the effects of climate change.
“We are confident that Malaysia will continue to be an ardent supporter in this area as businesses here have dedicated corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts towards energy conservation and other green initiatives. This is also a reflection of the rapidly increasing environment awareness among Malaysians at large,” he said.
Currently, the EC has initiatied and is involved in several regional and global environmental programmes. They include:
* Projects focusing on eco-tourism, sustainable urban waste management and the transfer of environmental technology and expertise;
* Switch Asia, a programme focusing on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and directly contributes to sustainable growth and the fight against poverty. SCP aims to reconcile the increased demand for goods and services and enhance the quality of life, while minimising the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle;
* Reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, a process to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation which commits a number of developed and key tropical developing countries such as Malaysia, to take early action to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; and,
* FLEGT Asia, the Asian arm of EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) which aims at improving forest governance and contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable natural resources management in Asian countries including Malaysia, through direct support for the implementation of the EU FLEGT Action Plan in the region.