How climate change is affecting Malaysia

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File photo shows a landslide in Ranau.

RECENTLY, I came across a most erudite paper written by Assoc Prof Dr Haliza Abdul Rahman published in the Malaysian Journal of Environmental Management in 2009. This publication does, I feel, need more general airing for it contains valuable information on the consequences of our ever-warming climate on all aspects of Malaysian life. I shall attempt to summarise the contents of this paper entitled, ‘Global climate change and its effects on Human habitat and Environment in Malaysia’, quoting from her where relevant.

Climate change “is an undeniable, pervasive and insidious planetary crisis that affects every aspect of our lives and future and is a long-term significant change in the average weather that we are experiencing and our temperatures over the last 40 to 50 years have shown warming trends”.

In the last 50 years, the warming of our temperatures has been roughly three times as rapid since the preceding 100 years bringing about an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and storms. Already this year the frequency of flooding has caused millions of ringgit losses and thousands of people displaced. Certainly, our wet and dry monsoon seasons are out of kilter.

Causes of climate change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has expressly declared that human activity is the root cause behind global warming. Our ever-increasing industrial growth and our transportation needs are releasing and accumulating ‘greenhouse gases’ especially CO2 and methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), and tropospheric ozone into our atmosphere.

Currently we are on course, globally, to double the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere from pre-industrial revolution times by 2050 thanks to our continued burning of fossil fuels plus the burning and logging of our forests for agricultural purposes, let alone massive wildfires caused by increasing periods of drought.

Our ever-increasing use of refrigeration and air conditioning to combat rising temperatures tends to release CFCs thereby depleting the stratospheric ozone layer. The attack by atmospheric bacteria on our sanitary landfill sites together with increasing flatulation by cattle and humans are our major sources of methane. Even the lower atmospheric layers are being heated up as these gases absorb infrared radiation and transfer this heat to our oceans.

Global warming on Malaysia

The then Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment in 2000 estimated that Malaysia will experience temperature changes from 0.7 to 2.6 degrees Celsius and precipitation changes ranging from minus 30 per cent to plus 30 per cent. Projections illustrate that Malaysia will become hotter with an average temperature rise per month of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050.

We can expect more rainfall extremes – more intense in the wet season and scarcer in the dry season. This will lead to higher river flows and thus more severe flooding and longer droughts! By 2100 sea levels will rise by 15 to 95 cm thus threatening ever increasing urban populations located on coastal sites. Here, in Sabah and Sarawak we have already felt these changes.

File photo shows a major flash flood in Kuching.

Effects on agriculture

Agriculture accounts for about 4 per cent of Malaysia’s Gross National Product, employing one third of the population. Nearly 40 per cent of the land area is devoted to oil palm, rubber tree, cocoa, and coconut plantations plus fruit and vegetables. Extreme climate change leads to physical damage to crops, loss of harvest and a fall in productivity. In 2007, flooding in Johor led to the displacement of over 100,000 people and RM 2.4 billion losses. Some 7,000 farmers lost RM 84 million worth of crops. Clearly climate change poses a threat not only to food supplies but also to export earnings from plantation crops through a reduction in crop yields.

It has been calculated that grain yields decline by up to 10 per cent for each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature and in prolonged droughts wet paddy cannot be sustained. Increased rainfall, while helping oil palm growth and productivity has a reverse effect on rubber. Flood water problems in southern Malaysia, in December 2006, saw palm oil production fall by 26 per cent. The prolonged drought of 1997 to 1998 especially affected Sabah and near Miri, Sarawak, more recently, massive wildfires destroyed a significant area of agricultural crops.

Rising sea levels could mean the abandonment of low-lying areas planted with paddy, maize, coconuts, and other valuable crops. Livestock should not be forgotten, for pigs, cattle and chicken are affected by direct heat leading to reduced meat production.

Biodiversity, recreational land use

Climate change has the capacity to change ecosystems and their resources and the services they supply to each other. As Haliza so aptly puts it: “Human societies depend on ecosystems for the natural, cultural, spiritual, recreational and aesthetic services they provide.” This raises the question as to how vulnerable people will adapt to direct and indirect effects of climate change. Borneo holds a rich diversity of plants and animals and the impact on any one species can have an effect on other species.

Changes in temperature and precipitation in any one area can lead to changes in the patterns of outdoor tourism and recreational opportunities. Coastal areas are already experiencing land loss owing to rising sea levels. We already experience the annual replenishment of sand on well-known tourist beaches at huge costs. Scuba diving and snorkelling off coral reefs may well become historic pastimes as the change in climate causes bleaching of the corals through the increasing amounts of CO2 absorbed by the oceans thus making them more acidic. With the destruction of corals, fish will migrate elsewhere to new habitats and the local inshore fisheries will see a massive decline in their catches.

Water resources

With increasing temperatures there is an increase in the potential evaporation rate meaning a net loss of moisture per annum. These evaporation rates increase in the dry season and with a prolonged drought will provide a stumbling block as the growing season for wet paddy becomes increasingly less thus necessitating efficient irrigation systems. With little surface run-off, the water quality of our rivers will deteriorate leading to threats to local fishing economies and associated tourist restaurants and eating places.

Rising sea levels

Already, it is thought that tidal inundations and more frequent storm surges are having an impact on low-lying coastal areas of Sabah and Sarawak destroying mangrove forests and through saltwater intrusion into groundwater supplies. Such saline intrusion can have an immediate effect on coastal thermal power plants where water is needed for cooling purposes.

At present, the average annual soil loss in tonnes per square kilometre for Sabah is 518 and for Sarawak 1,524. Most of this occurs after large storms. With more frequent and prolonged storms, there is a higher risk of slope failure, faster rates of sedimentation in reservoirs, and a depletion of soil nutrients. These two Bornean states are the most affected in Malaysia. An increase in river discharge by 20 per cent can cause a sediment load carried by rivers to increase by 35 per cent!

Effects on human health

Changes in temperature and rainfall could well result in an increase in vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis as mosquitoes respond to suitable breeding habitats. Diarrhoeal diseases such as E coli, cholera, and salmonella could increase through amoebic dysentery. We could well see the return of SOPs as issued by the Ministry of Health during the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

In conclusion

Haliza duly praises Malaysia’s National Climate Committee, which formulates and implements strategies to mitigate climate change. Such strategies include policies on energy usage, public awareness, food supply, and effective forest and coastal management to offset deforestation and rising sea levels.

The last 14 years since this paper was published have flown by but it still holds true today for during this time we have experienced, in one way or another, the effects of continuous climate change in terms of crop yields both on land and at sea, more frequent and intense storms, increased flooding and the inundation of low-lying land, more frequent slope failures, the destruction of beautiful beaches, and the destruction of coral reefs.

Increased temperatures have had a direct effect on our rising electricity bills as the more frequent use of fans and air conditioning is required. Our world has yet to find its way out of the woods but as the old adage says, “Where there is a will, there is a way.”