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WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

Current Energy scenario and Our carbon footprint

• Green building design and operation

• Renewable energy and clean energy generation

• Low carbon cities

 

The way forward In light of the current pandemic, there has certainly been a shift in how we now have to do things. In relation to carbon neutrality, we are still pursuing the path of fighting climate change by working at reducing our carbon emissions. It has been reported that due to the lockdown in some countries, carbon emissions have only reduced between 4 to 7% worldwide. We saw people being confined to the homes, transportation and travel coming to a near standstill, and most retail and industries

shutting down operations. However, this was limited by uncontrolled burning of forests fires in a few areas. As we pursue carbon neutrality, we first need to know where our carbon emissions are coming from and how much we can reduce it. On the contrary, to offset carbon emissions, we also need to source for cleaner forms of generating energy and having enough forestation as our carbon sink.

One of the biggest consumers of energy is industrial facilities (46%), commercial buildings (32%) and residential homes (21%). Industrial facilities are high energy consumers and so there’s only so much you can control. But we found a huge potential when it came to commercial and residential buildings. When the pandemic hit us, a majority of the industrial and commercial operations had to cease. Naturally, residential consumption rose as people stayed home. It will be interesting to see how the consumption trend changes over time and how much society can adapt to the new normal, once things are under control. All this will certainly have an impact on our carbon footprint. We generate a total 34MWh mainly from coal, natural gas in Malaysia. Out of that energy mix, renewable energy produces 22.5% of that, hydro, solar 2%, biomass, biogas. Our solar production is only 2% and the government intends to increase this to 20% by 2025 through various programs such

as large-scale solar farms and rooftop solar for buildings and individual homes. In order to be carbon neutral, we need to generate enough clean energy to offset the energy being consumed worldwide. Things for discussion will include the feasibility of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels and oil, carbon footprint reduction from all avenue streams and maintaining or increasing the forests as a carbon sink. We will look at low carbon cities with clean energy generation, integrated public transportation, environmentally sustainable practices and community health and living. All these complementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

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