Malaysia is ready to cut emissions

"Developed countries should do most, but Malaysia is ready to do its share," says Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Morten Andersen - 14/12/2009 - As Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, joins the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen later this week, his agenda will go beyond placing demands on industrialized countries.

“We are willing to offer our commitment. I am not just going to call on the developed world. I am going to commit Malaysia and I am going to commit Malaysia to very credible cuts which means we have to spend, which we will do,” Najib Razak tells Reuters.

According to UN data, Malaysians emit 7.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita (2006 figures) – which is not so much less compared to an average person in the industrialized world.

Najib Razak says that “all nations must contribute” to a new global deal and that “it has to be predicated on the fundamental principles of the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change”.

The Prime Minister also hopes that a solution on international funding that may help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change will be found in Copenhagen: “Otherwise we are just going to face a very uncertain future and the effects will be quite catastrophic.”

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Asian Development Bank: Funding insufficient

If there is no climate deal in Copenhagen, the carbon market could collapse and that would hit efforts to deal with climate change, warns the president of the Asian Development Bank.
Marianne Bom - 14/12/2009 - The President of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, says developed countries so far have come up with insufficient funding for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.

"At this stage the figures committed by the developed world are still insufficient and must be substantially increased over the years to come," Kuroda said in an interview on Sunday with Reuters but did not mention how high figures needed to rise.

"If meaningful financing arrangements are agreed, that would facilitate the core agreement on greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, threshold or benchmark by the international community, which would be absolutely necessary to stabilize climate change at the latest by 2015," he said.

Haruhiko Kuroda warned that if governments were to fail to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen, it could lead to a collapse of the carbon market. That would hit efforts to deal with climate change.

"If there is no agreement post-Kyoto, then the carbon market would collapse," he said. "That would cause great damage to the global effort to reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions," said Kuroda.

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