Malaysia’s latest five-year economic development blueprint, the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP), has introduced a raft of measures to support decarbonisation efforts as part of a “green economy”, including a pilot carbon capture project in the iron and steel industry.
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However, environmental groups have voiced concern about the plan’s lack of firm policies and financing mechanisms to protect nature and biodiversity.
“The (focus on) reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is all well and good,” said Tharma Pillai, senior consultant for Greenpeace Malaysia’s forest finance campaign. “However, (the plan is) limited in terms of firm legal and financing commitments that are required for Malaysia to one, better protect our forest ecosystems and two, be able to access international funds (for forest financing).”
The 13MP, tabled by Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim on 31 July, outlines the country’s national development priorities for the 2026-2030 period. Among the priorities listed to drive the green economy was to encourage carbon trading through the development of a national carbon market plan, emissions trading scheme and incentives for carbon credit projects [see box].
A pilot project for carbon capture in the iron and steel industry would also be launched in Kemaman, Terengganu, said Anwar.
Strengthening Malaysia’s green economy
The 13th Malaysia Plan listed the following initiatives to strengthen the green economy:
● Facilitate carbon trading
● Boost the carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) industry
● Improve access to green financing (examples cited include the Low Carbon Transition Facility, Green Technology Financing Scheme 5.0 dan Sustainable Green Biz Financing)
● Boost demand and supply of green products
By 2030, it aims to achieve:
● Complete elimination of hydrochlorofluorocarbons
● 10 million metric tonnes per year of available carbon dioxide storage capacity
● An average 50 per cent of selected equipment and services procured through the Green Government Procurement Programme
Source: 13th Malaysia Plan summary
However, the broader impacts of these green economy projects on land use change, water, energy use, public health and human rights need to be considered when considering their sustainability, said Meenakshi Raman, president of environmental non-profit Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM).
“While the 13MP talks of the green economy, how green (those initiatives actually are) is fundamentally the problem,” Raman told Eco-Business.
For instance, the government’s push for large data centres, also known as hyperscalers, to support the boom in artificial intelligence undermines other decarbonisation efforts. “The massive carbon emissions this will generate (and) the high use of water and energy undermines any sustainability imperative,” she said.
SAM was also critical of the planned development of nuclear power, saying it should not be labelled as ‘green’, given public health concerns about high-level radioactive waste disposal.
The 13MP listed nuclear power as one of several initiatives targeted at achieving Malaysia’s aim of achieving a renewable energy mix of 35 per cent by 2030, from 29 per cent in 2024, using existing programmes. It reaffirmed several existing policies to boost solar power and battery adoption, including the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (Cress), Community Renewable Energy Aggregation Mechanism (Cream) and floating solar projects.
“There is an urgent need for a more robust, comprehensive and transparent sustainability assessment and sustainability limits to align all these with climate and biodiversity targets and governance,” said Raman.
Forest data transparency, please
Unlike the 11th and 12th Malaysia Plans, which contained standalone chapters on green growth and sustainability, the 13MP listed green economy initiatives under its chapter on economic resilience, and addressed planetary health as well as disaster management separately, in a later chapter on human well-being and environmental sustainability.
Among its 2030 environment-related targets are a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions intensity to 45 per cent, compared to 37.1 per cent in 2021; a reduction in the percentage of total waste sent to disposal to 52 per cent, compared to 61 per cent in 2024; and an increase in the percentage of forested land gazetted as protected areas under the Central Forest Spine or as ecologically sensitive zones to at least 30 per cent, from 28.3 per cent in 2022.
The 13MP also aims to restore mangroves and wetland areas of 4,300 hectares, compared to 3,802 listed in 2024.
“More sites of biodiversity interest and protected areas, such as national parks, Ramsar sites, biosphere reserves, and marine mangrove and peat swamp forest areas will be gazetted to preserve the balance and sustainability of nature,” said the plan.
However, environmental groups say the 13MP should provide for more transparency on the exact locations of all protected areas in Malaysia.
In a memorandum of demands to Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES), Greenpeace Malaysia and nine other NGOs called for a map and registry of protected forest areas, agreed on by all state governments, to be published. They are also calling for these sites to be monitored from space, among other demands [see box].
Five demands for forest funding, protection and accountability
Greenpeace Malaysia and nine other non-governmental organisations, in a memorandum to Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, listed five key demands to be included in the 13th Malaysia Plan:
● A unified forest map and Protected Forest Registry agreed to on by all states;
● A satellite-based National Forest Monitoring Hub with civil society access;
● Direct Access Fund for Indigenous Peoples and local communities;
● Transparent oversight mechanism for forest finance under existing government
structures; and
● A clear public commitment for Malaysia to join the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
Source: Greenpeace Malaysia
The NGOs staged a public march to Parliament last week, where they presented the memorandum to NRES representatives and elected Members of Parliament (MP). “Why this matters is because there is an overlap and boundary confusion at the moment between federal and state governments (on protected areas),” said Pillai.
Although SAM did not sign the memorandum, it supported Greenpeace Malaysia’s call to improve forest data transparency.
“We have written to the government requesting them to re-publish or release the Master List of Protected Areas in Malaysia,” said Raman, referring to a list compiled by multiple stakeholders including conservation, marine and forestry authorities, civil society groups and experts released in 2020. However, SAM and other conservation groups have not been able to locate the file on any of the government’s websites.
Financing local communities
To address human-wildlife conflict and ecologically sensitive areas at risk of environmental harm, the 13MP said nature protection would be emphasised through “strengthening development planning at all levels of government”.
However, the plan does not include strategies for financing forest protection at the local community level, which environmental defenders say is critical for better forest monitoring and protection.
“We know that forest protection efforts require a lot of manpower and funds,” said Siti Hawa Abd Wahid, Perak president for Friends of Nature Activists (Kuasa). “Whenever we make an official report (on forest-related issues), the response we get from government departments is that they do not have enough manpower to do on-the-ground monitoring.”
At the same time, communities living in those forest areas are keen on voluntarily supporting forest protection, but lack the technical support and gadgets that could monitor forests effectively, she said.
Siti Hawa Abd Wahid, Perak president for Friends of Nature Activists (Kuasa), said communities living next to forested areas are willing to support the government’s forest protection efforts voluntarily, but lack the necessary technology. Image: Samantha Ho / Eco-Business
“That is why funding these frontliners is very important, because we can elect them as third-party monitors instead of depending on government departments that we acknowledge are busy with plenty of other work,” said Hawa. Kuasa was among the organisations which had signed the memorandum of demands led by Greenpeace Malaysia.
“Under the 13MP, we call (on the government) to create a direct access fund so that indigenous peoples and local communities can directly apply for forest protection grants,” said Greenpeace Malaysia’s Pillai.
The NGOs also called for Malaysia to commit to participating in the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), an initiative spearheaded by Brazil and aimed at channelling funds towards preventing deforestation in tropical countries.
Announced two years ago at COP28, the facility is scheduled to be formally launched at COP30 this November. Previous NRES minister, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, said at the time that Malaysia would participate in the facility. However, current acting NRES minister Johari Abdul Ghani has yet to comment on the facility or the memorandum.
The 13MP proposes tapping on several international funds including the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund, It also lists forest carbon offsets, an initiative being spearheaded by Malaysia Forest Fund, an agency under NRES, as a way to facilitate carbon credit trading.
SAM’s Raman said she was especially concerned that these offsets risk becoming a new form of land grabbing from local and Indigenous communities.
“We need to acknowledge that there are other systemic or root causes for deforestation and violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities due to ‘forest, timber and plantation politics’, and poor forestry governance in the country,” she said.
While more funds will help alleviate tensions over deforestation and land use change, more needs to be done to ensure that vested business interests are stamped out. “These are not addressed in the plan,” Raman said.
