Malaysia will need to plant seven million trees to every one million of its city population in order to absorb at least 15 per cent of the greenhouse gases released.
Deputy Tourism Minister Dr James Dawos Mamit said to date, on average a Malaysian city could only absorb up to 1.5 per cent of the gases.
“On that basis, based on the linear progressive model, I calculated that for every one million population, we would need seven million trees in every city.
“We will need to plant, among others, more shady trees, especially along the pedestrian walkways,” he told a news conference at the 15th General Assembly of the Asia Pacific Parliamentarians’ Conference on Environment and Development (APPCED).
Dawos, a trained specialist in forestry and environmental science, also serves as the current vice-president of APPCED.
He said Malaysia had put in place various policies to green its environment, including to allocate green lungs in the cities and to encourage implementation of green technology.
Dawos also said that he would be meeting with the National Landscape Department to discuss how the policies could be implemented more effectively.
On another matter, Dawos said the impact of climate change was getting worse, and if no action was taken to mitigate it, this might lead to more environmental disasters in the world.
For instance, he said, the volume of rainfall received by the country had increased by 30 per cent in the previous years compared to the volume in the 1960s. “The downpours are also getting stronger and this could have an adverse impact on the soil structure,” he added.
– Bernama
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