Budi95 Steps Towards Sustainability

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 Rightfully so, public attention is on the new RON95 petrol subsidy scheme, with a lot of discussion on the introduction of limits to the amount of subsidised petrol a person can buy.
The overwhelming majority of Malaysians drive to get around, for work, school, and their daily lives and are reliant on affordable fuel to be able to do so. The potential rise in costs is anxiety-inducing even among those who are better off, which makes the generous limits much welcomed.
Yet, there are emerging views that the petroleum subsidy retargeting (with which, full disclosure, I had some minimal involvement) is misplaced, given that Malaysia has set for itself aggressive carbon emission targets.
It has been argued that incentivising public transport use (and, somewhat distantly, electric vehicles) would be better suited to achieving those targets. That is true, to a certain degree.
We have to continue decarbonising where we can, and reducing reliance on privately owned vehicles is a low-hanging fruit. Malaysia’s carbon emissions from transportation are a significant component of its emission mix at 23 percent of total emissions.
Road sector emissions (i.e. travel via cars, motorbikes, buses, trucks) are responsible for almost all of the emissions from this sector, which is also almost entirely based on petroleum-based fuels. Reducing road use and moving people to trains and MRTs would see an immediate reduction in oil-based emissions.
Slowly move away from the vehicle
However, the conversation is also not a binary one, and certainly not isolated from the needs and realities of everyday Malaysians. Green initiatives do not have to be drastic and painful to the average person if the intention is to push sustainable behavioural change that won’t be reversed in the next election.
After all, the reliance on cars goes beyond mere convenience. For many, it is a necessity to be able to travel within a reasonable amount of time.
This is true in the Klang Valley but also for urban-dwellers beyond it, as people find themselves residing, either by choice or by affordability, in areas that are not immediately accessible to main transportation nodes.
Likewise, for small and medium-sized businesses and workplaces that need to set up shop in places they can afford, where the only mode of public transportation is a bus, maybe every half an hour.
This is not to say that we should not reduce private vehicle use, but the approach to reducing their use should itself be sustainable and not due to sudden policy changes.
A significant shift as such would need to build extensive levels of consent, as well as infrastructure readiness. Public transportation should not have to be a struggle, but instead a reasonable and eventually preferable option.
Scaling up public transportation
Can our public transportation system handle a huge, sudden rise in passengers? For those familiar with rush hour transportation in the Klang Valley, the answer would be obvious. It is normal to experience long, overflowing lines and frequent delays as the present infrastructure struggles to transport existing commuters.
The 13th Malaysia Plan also highlights fragmented connectivity, suboptimal usage, and ineffective governance as current issues afflicting public transportation. And all of this is happening when public transportation usage rates are still at 25 percent, below the government’s 2020 target of 40 percent.
Private car registration grew by an average of 6.6 percent annually between 1990 and 2023, according to the Khazanah Research Institute, almost twice the rate of urban population growth. A sudden surge would push the limits of our infrastructure, adding to people’s frustrations.
There is also a greater conversation to be had about the country’s urban sprawl, where car travel is the primary and sometimes only option to get around.
The gradual subsidy retargeting by the government is a reasonable step in the right direction, given the state of the economy and politics. Critically, it creates a new thinking paradigm where cheap fuel is not perceived to be endless, which is a starting point for promoting better consumption and transportation habits.
It would be necessary for the government to build on this, figuratively and literally, to also make Malaysian transportation more environmentally sustainable. - Mkini
LUTFI HAKIM ARIFF works at the intersection of media, policy, and politics. Currently on an education sojourn in the US.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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