Malaysia's carbon emissions have spiralled since 1990, increasing faster than any country on earth, a United Nations report released. The UN Human Development Report on fighting climate change showed Malaysia's carbon emissions grew by 221 percent from 1990 to 2004, placing it in 26th place on a global league table of emitters.
In comparison, the world's top carbon emitter, the United States, saw a 25 percent growth in the same period. Malaysia's rapid rise in emissions is the result of robust expansion in its industrial and automotive sectors, UN environmental analyst Asfaazam Kasbani said. "In the last 14 years, we saw major growth in the automotive, food, wood, iron and steel, paper and pulp, ceramic, glass and cement industries," he told AFP.
"All these are large power consumers and also produce large carbon emissions which have not been reduced." The UN's representative in Malaysia, Richard Leete, called for more action from Malaysia as he released the report.
"I would support a much stronger course of action to develop a policy on climate change that would address issues of adaptation, mitigation, deforestation, and see how you can balance it," he said.
Noor Azlan Ghazali from the national Economic Planning Unit, who represented the government at the launch, said Malaysia was working to reduce emissions and had ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
The report was released ahead of next week's global climate change conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, where 190 countries including Malaysia will discuss a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
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