Study Shows Energy Efficiency Could Unlock RM47b Savings Over 15 Years

Yeo Bee Yin said a study estimated that Malaysia had potential energy
savings of up RM46.92 billion from 2016 to 2030. 

(KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 1, 2018) ― A joint study by the government's Economic Planning Unit and the United Nations Development Programme estimated that Malaysia had potential energy savings of up RM46.92 billion from 2016 to 2030, said Yeo Bee Yin.

During her winding up session on the Midterm Review of the 11th Malaysia Plan (RMK11), the energy, science, technology, environment and climate change minister said this showed huge potential for the energy efficiency industry.

“The study shows that the main obstacle from widespread use of energy efficient practices is the lack of regulatory framework. Therefore the government is in the process to come up with the framework for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (EECA).

“The EECA draft will be tabled next year.  At the same time the government has also reviewed and improved the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) 2016-2025. The government will focus on the building sectors because it has been identified as low hanging fruits,” said Yeo.

She explained that buildings utilise up to 50 per cent of Malaysia's electricity consumption, reflecting a huge potential for cost savings if their energy usage could be optimised.

To jumpstart the energy efficiency sector, Yeo said her ministry is cooperating with the Works Ministry to prepare an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) to retrofit roughly 5,000 government owned buildings nation wide.

The contract is expected to be completed in January next year.

“EPC can unlock the potential energy saving efficiency without putting big financial burden to the government,” she assured.

“Under its mechanism an energy service company (Esco) will come up with the funds for a retrofit projects such as replacing chillers and LED lights in government buildings and share the cost saving bill with the government.

“For instance, after retrofitting a government building, the cost saving (for the building's electricity bill) will be at 20 per cent. This will be divided between the government and the Esco. The government saves 10 per cent and Esco will take 10 per cent for a certain amount of time.”

This allows the government to save 10 per cent in electricity bills while Esco will obtain a 10 per cent constant revenue stream.

In other words, the government will pay Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) 80 per cent of its current electricity bills after the retrofit is completed. The government will also pay 10 per cent of its current electricity bill to Esco for the stipulated contractual period.

After the contractual period is over, the government will only pay TNB 80 per cent of its current electricity bill without paying anything more to Esco and it keeps the retrofitted electrical equipment as assets.

This also allows Esco to increase its viability through constant revenue stream so they may obtain further project financings from banks.

Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong then asked whether there will be a guarantee from Esco that the government will save 20 per cent of its electricity costs.

Yeo explained that the EPC is a contractual agreement between the building owner and Esco where Esco must give a guarantee on how much the building owner will pay them and the amount the owners save.

“As a start, we have targeted to retrofit at least 50 buildings by 2019 and the total value of the EPC projects is expected to be more than RM160 to RM200 million,” she said.

(MalayMail)

Plastic Waste Import Scrapped With Immediate Effect, Says Zuraida

Plastic waste is piled outside an illegal recycling factory in Jenjarom,
Kuala Langat October 14, 2018. — Reuters pic

(PETALING JAYA - Malay Mail) :The issuance of approved permits for the import of plastic waste has ceased effective last week (October 26,  2018)  Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said.

She also said in a Bernama report that a framework will be drawn up to phase out plastic imports completely in three years in order to boost the domestic plastics industry.

“The local plastics industry will turn into a major player and will shed our reliance on imported material,” she said in the report, adding that the move was also aimed at protecting the environment and public health.

Earlier, Zuraida had chaired a special committee meeting to address the growing plastic waste problem in the country.

Malaysia has become a dumping ground for plastic waste after China banned its import from the beginning of the year.

Since then, Malaysia is said to have imported nearly half a million tonnes of plastic waste between January and July.

Zuraida also said today that according to Ministry of International Trade and Industry statistics, Malaysia’s plastics industry could generate a revenue of up to RM30 billion a year.

On  September 26, 2018 The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) calls for a total ban on imports of plastic waste to protect public health and our environment.

This call is made in response to the announcement by Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin that a levy would be imposed at RM15 per tonne of plastic waste after Oct 23, when the freeze on approved permit (AP) on plastic waste import ends.

CAP is very frustrated with the Malaysian government because it does not recognise the scale of the problem. Upon learning China’s notification to WTO last year regarding the country’s intention to impose a ban on plastic waste imports, and anticipating cascading problems to Malaysia, on July 25, 2017 CAP had written to several ministries and the Department of National Solid Waste Management (DNSWM) to impose a ban on import of plastic waste.

The DNSWM responded that the department has formulated specific rule to control plastic waste imports and will impose stringent requirements on premises and import licences. However, the control measures and enforcement are proven not adequate, based on the current situation of pollution and mushrooming of illegal recycling factories in many parts of Malaysia.

The government now thinks by imposing a levy, the environmental problem can be curbed. We view otherwise. The global production and trade of waste plastic has grown tremendously over recent decades. However, much of this plastic is single-use and of little or no recycling value, destined for processing in recycling operations.

Until January 2018, China was the main recipient of the world’s plastic waste, and was forced to burn or bury the residual trash from other countries that couldn’t be recycled, leading to massive environmental pollution and public health impacts in host communities processing imported plastic waste.

China has responded to calls to clean up its act by banning the importation of plastic waste and focusing on the collection and recycling of plastic waste generated domestically.

Now that China has closed its borders to foreign waste, we are discovering that massive volumes of the same have started to arrive in the ports of South-east Asian countries, including Malaysia where illegal factories to recycle plastic waste have mushroomed.

We understand from reports that many errant recycling firms, many of which are from China and operating without permits, are burning residual waste that cannot be recycled or illegally dumping them.

The dangers that plastic pose to the environment and human health are well established. Plastic is now found in all major water systems. In its visible form plastic poses a huge threat to marine life and in its broken down form (i.e. microplastic and nanoplastics) it enters the food chain and eventually accumulates in human bodies.

When burned, plastic releases persistent organic pollutants, a multitude of toxic emissions, and greenhouse gases. When proper protections are not in place, not only neighbouring communities but recycling workers are also exposed to dangerous and unjust working conditions, and must risk their lives and health.

We can no longer allow such a dangerous material to be shipped across the world to Malaysia for processing and dumping. The cost and burden to public health and the environment far outweigh the revenue gained by the Malaysian government from the levy imposed on plastic waste imports. We already have plastic waste generated domestically which needs to be recycled safely.

Therefore we urge the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Department of National Solid Waste Management (DNSWM) to stop issuing APs for importing plastic waste.

The local authorities should take stringent action to ensure there are no more illegal premises operating. The authorities should also find ways to manage the existing plastic waste that has been dumped in our country.

Malaysia is not a dumping ground. Ban plastic waste imports.

Handful Of States Hold Fate Of World’s Vanishing Wilderness

In this file photo taken on June 28, 2018, the Jaraua river flows through the Miramar Sustainable Development Reserve in Amazonas State, Brazil. — AFP pic

(AFP -  November 01,  2018)

PARIS -  More than 70 per cent of Earth’s last untouched wilderness lies in the territories of just five countries, scientists said yesterday ― mostly nations that alarm environmentalists with their lukewarm response to climate change.

True wild spaces ― land and sea areas mostly unaffected by mankind’s explosive expansion and insatiable appetite for food and natural resources ― now cover just a quarter of the planet.

They form vital refuges for thousands of endangered species threatened by deforestation and overfishing, and provide some of our best defences against the devastating weather events brought about by climate change.

New research published in the journal Nature found that nearly three quarters of the wilderness that’s left belongs to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and the US.

“For the first time we’ve mapped both land and marine wilderness and showed that there’s actually not much left,” James Watson, professor of conservation science at the University of Queensland and lead paper author, told AFP.

“A few countries own a lot of this untouched land and they have a massive responsibility to keep the last of the wild.”

Researchers used open-source data on eight indicators of human impact on wilderness, including urban environments, farm land and infrastructure projects.

For oceans, they used data on fishing, industrial shipping and fertiliser run-off to determine that just 13 percent of the planet’s seas bore little or no hallmarks of human activity.

In a week when scientists warned that animals were being driven to the brink of extinction by runaway consumption, the paper’s findings that most remaining wilderness lies with just five nations will likely set conservationists’ nerves on further edge.

Russia’s vast swathes of taiga forest and permafrost contains trillions of trees that suck carbon from the atmosphere, tempering the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

But Russia has been vague in its conservation commitments and President Vladimir Putin suggested last year that climate change was not caused by humans.

‘Alarm bells’

President Donald Trump has said the US is leaving the landmark Paris deal on climate change, and Brazil this week elected a right-wing former army captain who has pledged to drawdown existing legal protections for the Amazon rain forest.

The wilderness list sets off “alarm bells”, said Watson, who is also director of the science and research initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York.

But “there’s time to break the mould and show some leadership. Because to sustain wilderness you just have to stop industry and not allow people in,” he added.

Due to voracious human consumption of fossil fuels, wood and meat, as well as our exploding population, just 23 per cent of land on Earth is untouched by the impact of agriculture and industry.

A century ago that figure stood at 85 per cent. Between 1993 and 2009, an area of wilderness the size of India was lost to human settlement, farming and mining.

The conservation group WWF warned this week that mankind’s consumption had decimated global wildlife and triggered what is known as a mass-extinction event.

In the last 40 years populations of fish, birds, amphibians reptiles and mammals have plummeted, on average, by 60 per cent.

In their paper, Watson and his colleagues warned that Earth’s wild places were facing “the same extinction crisis as species”.

“Similar to species extinction, the erosion of the wilderness is essentially irreversible,” they wrote. ‘Nature needs a break’

As well as being havens for biodiversity, wildernesses such as the boreal forest in northern Canada ― which acts as a carbon sink and which is protected by federal law ― form mankind’s frontline protection against runaway climate change.

“These areas are the places where many, many species retreat to,” said Watson. “At the same time they have massive amounts of carbon reserves.”

Scientists called for greater legislation to protect other unspoilt areas from industry, and to reformat global finance initiatives to provide incentives for forest protection.

“It requires nations to legislate and not let industry in. Nature needs a break,” said Watson.

“We can’t just exploit everywhere and these nations still have these strongholds of wilderness. I think the world would appreciate these nations standing up and saying we’re going to look after these places.”