KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 — The All-party Parliamentary Group Malaysia (APPGM)-Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has proposed for a Climate Change Commission to be established in the country.
APPGM-SDG chairman Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim (GPS-Batang Lupar) said the commission would act as an independent oversight body to regulate matters related to climate change, including adaptation and disaster risk management.
She said the APPGM-SDG also recommended a review of the country’s land use planning, including the State Structure Plan and Local Plan as well as the process of gazetting permanent forest reserves (HSK) in Malaysia.
“The results of the research done by the APPGM-SDG team in 2020 and 2021 found that there are areas in Malaysia including the Batang Lupar Parliamentary constituency that recorded floods due to development and land-use change activities that were not planned properly and lacked adequate risk assessment,” she said during the Special Meeting on the flood disaster at the Dewan Rakyat today.
According to her, the impact of floods would be worse in the future with population growth, as well as the rate of urbanisation and economic development in flood-prone areas, coupled with the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather due to climate change.
Apart from that, she also proposed for a transformation in city areas to have more holistic and innovative water management, as well as to review and stop development in environmentally sensitive areas and implement community-based disaster risk management. — Bernama
