About time politicians include climate change issue in manifestos - Political analysts

SHAH ALAM - Climate change is already happening and politicians are expected to have in their manifestos the plans for disaster mitigation measures.

BowerGroupAsia senior analyst Arinah Najwa said the impact of climate change can be seen from the floods happening in the country and how it brought upon the issues of food security which affected the living conditions of the people, especially the low income group.

“The climate crisis is already here. We’re already seeing it through the floods so it definitely should be on the agenda of politicians and how they are going to address it.

“Beyond floods, we can see the climate change crisis impacting other areas too and it will definitely impact the livelihood of the most vulnerable low income groups.

“Those in the upper class or upper middle income class, they will be affected too although not as much as the low income groups,” she said during Sinar Daily’s Wacana English Edition programme entitled “GE15: Dates are set, are you ready?” on Friday.

Also on the show as panellists were political analyst and lecturer from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Associate Professor Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani and UiTM Associate Professor Soo Wincci while Zoraya Vadillio was the moderator.

On the show, they discussed about the 15th General Election (GE15) and the voter turnout, contesting candidates and campaigning period.

Arinah said there was a need for the people to give a little push to the politicians to put these issues on their agenda and actions to be taken accordingly rather than just talking about it.

Meanwhile, Azizuddin said the issue of climate change has been discussed by politicians in the country but the focus was now on the floods.

He predicted that all political parties will soon emphasise on this issue and include them in their policies when they form the government in the course of time.

“I think they are talking about climate change right now, but most of the time they talked about floods.

“I think the issue of global warming has become important and I suspect all political parties will highlight this in their manifestos and try to tackle the issue and put this issue as part of their policy when they become the government in the future,” he said.

He also said people have consciousness on this issue following the floods that hit the country.

He shared that in a recent research he conducted in Kedah, among the issues that the people were most concerned about was the environment.

“This is probably because of the floods in Baling and it is from the perspective of those affected.

“This includes Selangor as well as they experienced the floods last year and early this year,” he said.

Echoing Arinah’s view, Azizuddin said the issue of food security was becoming very concerning in the country and he suspected that all political parties would include something about this in their manifesto to tackle this issue.

This, he said was because the issue of food security could possibly be the biggest issue that the new government will have to handle besides the issue of economy, next year.

Meanwhile, Soo said other countries which were also impacted by the climate change through natural disasters like typhoons have felt the need to put this in their policy and it showed the leaders’ concern for their people.

“Other countries experienced typhoons (and other natural disasters) so they definitely need to put this in their policy because they need the people to vote.

“It’s considerate of the leaders to be thinking about that.

“In Malaysia, it is the monsoon season and the politicians need to be strategic and provide ways to save the victims and make the people's lives easier,” she added.