For a number of years now I’ve had a choice to make that I’ve been suspending. Should I set up solar panels on the home and get free electrical energy? Or ought to I simply preserve issues the means they’re?
I imply, “free” isn’t fairly the proper technique to say it as a result of it prices cash to put in the panels. But as soon as they’re in place, there’s a scheme in Malaysia that means that you can “sell” electrical energy again to the nationwide grid, offsetting your month-to-month electrical energy invoice.
Depending on what precisely you purchase, it appears prefer it may take wherever between seven and 12 years to make your a refund, and the lifetime of the system is supposed to be 25 years. It’s roughly the similar returns as retaining your cash in a set deposit account for that lengthy.
Paying for 10 yr’s value of electrical energy prematurely may not likely sound that enticing from an funding perspective – however then once more, you’d even be saving the planet.
Of course, all that is prompted by the launch earlier this month of the third and ultimate instalment of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
You is not going to be shocked that the unhealthy information continues to be unhealthy. “Average annual GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions during 2010-2019 were higher than in any previous decade,” reads the report. Despite some makes an attempt, with the present charge of effort, the report says that it’s “likely” that the common international temperature will rise by greater than that vital 1.5°C by the finish of this century (report out there here).
What is the greenback price of this? Swiss Re, one in all the world’s largest insurance coverage suppliers, estimates that by 2050, local weather change will scale back international financial output by 11% to 14%, leading to as much as US$23tril (RM97.3tril) in diminished international financial output worldwide per yr.
From a neighborhood perspective, issues are even worse. The similar report by Swiss Re ranked Malaysia at the backside of a listing of 48 international locations for unfavourable influence on GDP because of local weather change. The largest components affecting this are losses from crop yield and productiveness, warmth stress (measured in labour productiveness losses) and diminished tourism.
Unsurprisingly, Singapore can even undergo a unfavourable GDP influence (ranked 47), however its future outlook is far more optimistic. Why? Because the report provides an excellent score to its Adaptive Capacity (the potential to manage with local weather influence). Singapore’s is ranked fifth, whereas Malaysia’s is all the means down at thirty third.
The reality is that there’s a lot we will do to deal with local weather change head on. The excellent news for vitality technology is that the price of inexperienced applied sciences on this space has gone down vastly in the final 10 years: Solar vitality has diminished by 85% per unit, wind by 55%, and lithium-ion batteries (to retailer all this vitality) by 85%.
Though land is a comparatively scarce useful resource in Singapore, the nation is able to spend money on solar vitality through the use of land from abroad. A couple of weeks in the past Indonesia and Singapore had been reported to be engaged on a brand new regulatory framework to control exports of solar power from the former.
More ambitiously, an organization in Australia has lately introduced it’s on monitor to develop a US$22.6bil (RM95.7bil) solar power undertaking to ship electrical energy from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore by way of a 4,200km cable. The undertaking is because of begin in 2026 and is predicted to satisfy 15% of Singapore’s demand.
In distinction, Malaysia used coal for as much as 59% of the nation’s power technology in the first half of 2021. This is the one power supply the IPCC has unequivocally really useful to drastically lower, by 76% by 2030. It additionally advises that the majority of oil and gasoline reserves grow to be “unextractable”, and no extra new fields be looked for, one thing Malaysia as an oil and gasoline exporting nation ought to take heed of.
However, vitality makes up solely 34% of GHG emissions. There are different sectors to think about. For instance, transport contributes 15% of worldwide GHG emissions, and 6% comes from buildings. It’s apparent that city areas are the place most of those two sources are concentrated, and true sufficient, cities are accountable for greater than two-thirds of GHG emissions.
So it’s heartening to see some effort being made regionally with the publication of the Kuala Lumpur Climate Action Plan 2050 late final yr, which goals for the metropolis to be carbon-neutral by 2050. It’s nonetheless fairly a high-level plan that emphasises the have to coordinate with federal businesses rather a lot somewhat than offering a transparent monitor of options, although.
It does, nevertheless, attempt to seize the present state of affairs, and confirms that 56% of GHG emissions in the metropolis is because of transportation (nearly solely on-road transportation), and 41% is from business and institutional buildings.
So can we as people make a distinction? In concept, sure. The IPCC report says that there’s probably 40% to 70% of emissions reductions potential via particular person decisions and actions.
But how sensible is that? How probably are you, as a person, to decide on to stroll or cycle as an alternative of driving a automotive? To eat extra sustainable diets and keep away from losing meals? To put solar panels in your roof?
For me, that is the crux of the matter. You could make a wonderfully energy-efficient bus, however strolling will nonetheless be higher for the surroundings. As I’ve written earlier than (“Pedestrian problems”), constructing a pedestrian-friendly metropolis means ensuring locations with providers you need should be close to sufficient, accessible sufficient and attention-grabbing sufficient to stroll to. That requires acceptable interventions from the authorities. (While the KL blueprint talks about bettering public transport to its credit score, there may be little or no about walkability.)
As I discussed, the KL blueprint emphasises the significance of working with federal businesses. For instance, it says that if KL City Hall works by itself, it may scale back emissions by 58% by 2050; nevertheless, if it may cooperate at the federal degree, this quantity rises to 93%.
Given this recognition that we’re all in it collectively, absolutely the similar applies to serving to people making an attempt to make inexperienced selections. For instance, the Petaling Jaya City Council gives an evaluation tax rebate of as much as RM500 for his or her Eco-Friendly House Owners Low-Carbon Green City programme. Which means the time for return of funding in a solar panel is diminished from perhaps eight years to perhaps seven years and 6 months.
It doesn’t appear to be a lot – however each little bit helps, and if we’re severe about making this work, for the finish consumer it helps if it makes cents in addition to sense.
In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the concept that logic is the antithesis of emotion however folks want each to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [email protected]. The views expressed listed below are solely the author’s personal.
