Heat is on for climate Bill

The Star

2 days ago

PETALING JAYA: Spain is scorching in 43°C weather this week while Japan saw its highest ever temperature of 41.8°C just last week.
Last month, Turkiye set a new record of 50.5°C.
News reports said recent floods in Pakistan were caused by heavy rainfall ­worsened by 'human-caused climate change'.
As the global temperature rises, environmental activists and other professionals in Malaysia are pressing for the Climate Change Bill to be tabled in Parliament soon to make environmental rights a human rights concern.
'We strongly view the impact of climate change, such as extreme heat, not merely as environmental or economic issues but as fundamental threats to human rights,' said Malaysian Bar president Mohamad Ezri Abdul Wahab.
He added that the Bar Council had been advocating for a rights-based approach in drafting the Climate Change Bill.
The Bar Council, he said, recently called on the government to ensure that Bill explicitly integrates human rights principles to protect the most vulnerable, including the present and future generations, from the impact of climate change.
'Framing climate protection through the Bill will be in alignment with both the Paris Agree­ment and Malaysia's own sustainable development agenda.
'Any delay risks weakening action on climate change, a crisis that demands urgency and legally enforceable mandates,' he said when contacted.
News reports in May stated that the Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry will table a National Climate Change Bill in August.
However, the Bill has yet to appear in the Order Paper of the Dewan Rakyat, which began its sittings on July 21.
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu adjunct professor Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said there should be urgency in tabling the Bill because climate change is a reality which impacts the lives and livelihoods of the people.
'The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that global sea levels will rise by 0.26m to 0.77m by 2100.
'This will have an impact on people and their livelihoods as some 40% of Malaysians live within the coastal zone,' he said.
'There ought to be a target date for the Bill to be tabled and it should be done under the current administration.
'If this can be done, it will be seen as a legacy of the Prime Minister for all Malaysians and the generations to come,' he said when contacted yesterday.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia president Meenakshi Raman voiced hope that the Climate Change Bill would be comprehensive and responsive enough to protect Malaysians from the adverse impacts of climate change.
She lauded the effort by the government to address the issue but said that the proposed law is lacking in several key areas.
'From what we know, the Bill does not address loss and ­damage.
'We do not know why, even though loss and damage is the third pillar of the Paris Agreement related to mitigation, damage and adaptation and loss,' she said.
Meenakshi noted that the adaption to the impacts of climate change was also crucial.
'The government is doing a National Adaptation Plan but this is really moving too slowly. It needs to be expedited,' she said.
Prof Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood of Sunway University's centre for planetary health said it is urgent that the nation has a law on environmental rights which recognises it as a human right.
'It is time for Malaysia and the region to move beyond rhetoric and embed climate justice into legal frameworks and public policy.
'Recognising environmental rights as human rights is not merely aspirational but essential for safeguarding the dignity and survival of vulnerable communities,' she said when contacted.
In a write-up in The Star last Wednesday, she recounted a recent experience in the United Kingdom where she attended environmental events and found herself unprepared for the heat.
'It wasn't just uncomfortable, it was alarming,' she wrote.