IN early October, Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin announced that Malaysia would review its emissions-reduction targets at the next United Nations climate change conference, to be held in Glasgow late next year.

According to Yeo, Malaysia achieved a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity of GDP relative to 2005 levels, putting us within reach of our 2015 Paris Agreement target of a 35% reduction. For several reasons elaborated upon below, all our future targets should be completely decoupled from GDP.

What matters most are absolute emissions reduction

The root cause of climate change is the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases (GHCs) in the atmosphere. These heat-trapping gases are the prime causes of the steady rise in average surface temperatures, and rising temperatures are linked to many of the changes in the Earth’s climate, projected by scientists to cause severe economic damage both today and well into the future.

The only two ways to solve this issue are by:

Removing GHGs from the atmosphere through geoengineering – a politically and scientifically contentious set of tools regarded by many experts to be, essentially, a rainy-day, fallback option and, more pressingly,

Cutting current and future GHG emissions significantly to prevent further, outsized accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere and, in doing so, avoid uncontrollable rises in surface temperatures on Earth, which will then bring about further damage on almost unfathomable scales.

All the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) – in other words, the emissions reduction pledges from individual nations as per the Paris Agreement – aim to tackle climate change through this second avenue.

But here’s the catch: even if all the 192 INDCs are met, average global surface temperatures will rise by more than 3°C, well above both the 1.5°C increase that the UNFCCC warns will bring about substantial economic damage and the 2°C upper-bound limit set in Paris.

In fact, this was one of the controversies that followed the agreement: what many governments across the world were willing to do still wouldn’t be enough to hold off the worst effects of climate change. We knew then, as we do now, that more forceful emissions reduction actions are necessary.

Notice one thing at this point: GDP does not feature in any way when it comes to curtailing emissions and mitigating climate change. In fact, tying emissions reductions to GDP is a misleading distraction.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this point. In 2005, Malaysia’s GDP was RM659.6 billion and total GHG emissions were 282.7 megatonnes (MT); in 2014, GDP grew to RM1,012.5 billion and total emissions to 317.63MT. While the emissions intensity of GDP had fallen by 26.8% between 2005 and 2014, total emissions had risen by 12.4%.

The bottom line is that Malaysia was contributing more to climate change in 2014 than it was in 2005. And, as MESTECC’s projections indicate, Malaysia will continue to contribute significantly more over the next decade – even if we achieve our “ambitious” target of reducing emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030.

This is highlighted by the figure below, which shows total emissions projections from electricity generation, transport, and oil and gas production, and accounts for more than 70% of total national emissions. BAU refers to business-as-usual emissions projections and PLAN refers to projections under the 35% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP target and AMB projections under a 45% reduction target.

Even under our most ambitious of existing targets, emissions from these three sectors will increase by 45.6% between 2014 and 2030, further reinforcing the fact that Malaysia’s contributions to climate change will only worsen if we continue to set our emissions reduction targets based on GDP.

Who else sets emissions targets based on GDP?

Of the 192 INDCs, only those of Chile, China, India, Singapore, Tunisia, Uruguay and Uzbekistan have targets explicitly based on the emissions intensity of GDP. Before digging into their specific pledges to highlight the distinct differences between theirs and ours, it’s useful to note two crucial points.

First, of this GDP-based target group, only China and India contributed more to global emissions than us between 1990 and 2010; indeed, they are the only two who also do so currently. Second, between the Industrial Revolution and 2010, we contributed 1.5% of total global CO2 emissions, with only China (11.8%) and India (3.7%) above us among members of this group. This is important because Malaysia is among the top 20 global emitters of GHGs when ranked by both the two latter metrics, highlighting the scale of our contribution to the problem.

Chile pledges a 30% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP – lower than that of Malaysia. However, their share of renewables in electricity generation hit 21% this year, and a further 30% comes from hydroelectric power. It also charges a carbon tax of roughly RM20 per tonne of CO2.

China’s pledges include a 60-65% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP, and a peak in total emissions, before 2030. Malaysia has no such peak planned; our emissions are projected to keep rising beyond 2030.

India has pledged to reduce the emissions intensity of GDP by up to 35% by 2030, but at the same time, has increased the share of renewables to power generation from 2% in 2002 to 13% in 2015. It has also set a non-fossil fuel electricity capacity target of 40% by 2030.

Singapore pledges a 36% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP, as well as a peak in total emissions, by 2030. It has recently imposed a carbon tax of roughly RM15/tCO2e, rising to between RM30 and RM46/tCO2e thereafter.

Tunisia’s pledges include a 41% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP by 2030, and a reduced carbon intensity of their energy sector of 46% – per unit of energy.

Uruguay has pledged to be a net CO2 sink by 2030, in addition to a 25% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP relative to 1990. By 2015, it had almost 95% of its electricity supplied from clean energy sources.

Finally, Uzbekistan has pledged a 10% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP by 2030, among the weakest overall INDCs made at Paris. It is also ruled by an authoritarian government, and is not an example Malaysia should strive to follow.

On Malaysia’s future pledges

There is an important need to focus more on total emissions reductions, and not just on reducing the emissions intensity of GDP. As long as economic growth outstrips the growth of emissions, Malaysia will easily hit targets that still don’t address the increasing concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. 

With this in mind, it is hoped that Yeo decouples Malaysia’s emissions reduction goals from GDP when improving on our pledges in Glasgow next year. Instead, Malaysia should set a total, absolute emissions reduction target, as well as set a date for the peaking of total emissions some time within the next decade. For this to happen, we need to aggressively deploy clean energy technologies across the country in the coming years, and improve our public transport infrastructure.

MESTECC must also seriously consider the implementation of a tax on GHG emissions. This fundamental measure can strengthen the economic cases for low-carbon technologies across every sector it covers. In doing so, Malaysia would follow the example of over 70 jurisdictions globally that have either implemented, or have imminent plans to implement, carbon pricing schemes, and have a purely market-based measure assisting in the achievement of emissions reduction goals.

* Darshan Joshi is an analyst at Penang Institute.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.