Kota Kinabalu: Climate Governance Malaysia (CGM) Founder cum President Datin Seri Sunita Rajakumar said people should stop extracting from the Earth without protecting it so that businesses, communities and the climate can all thrive together.
“For decades, humanity has been taking from the Earth far faster than nature can replenish it, while the financial, social and environmental costs of doing nothing grow by the day,” she said in her keynote at the Soroptimist International South East Asia Pacific Conference of Clubs, here, last Saturday.
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“Human activity is altering the planet itself, and melting ice sheets, rising seas and extreme seasons could soon pass a point of no return, with consequences we can never undo,” she said.
She said that at least one of six global weather reporting stations had already recorded warming exceeding 1.5 degrees and that ocean warming was occurring at an unprecedented rate, making short-term reversal near impossible.
Sunita, who is also an ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s Chapter Zero Alliance and a member of its Global Future Council on Climate and Nature Governance, said a majority of Malaysia’s rivers are polluted, a microplastic crisis is already underway and hyperinflation of medical supplies is becoming visible.
“In Malaysia, which is a small, open trading economy, we have neither food security nor water,” she said, adding that the country was not alone, with virtually every nation experiencing similar conditions.
“Not enough,” she said when asked what Malaysia had done to mitigate climate change effectively.
“In seven years, the CGM has dealt with seven environment ministers. YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was really the most proactive and he understood. He tried to push through the Climate Change Bill, some of which covers carbon pricing,” she said.
Sunita said carbon pricing remained challenging to implement because Malaysia needed a stronger baseline understanding of its greenhouse gas emissions before such a policy could take effect.
“Emissions sources were wider than commonly assumed, extending beyond large corporations to include open landfills generating methane, large hydroelectric dams, palm oil plantation effluent ponds and the relocation of carbon-penalised industrial operations from countries that had already introduced carbon pricing.
“Dirty steel factories from China are being chased out because of carbon pricing and they are coming to countries like Malaysia which do not have carbon pricing,” she said, framing this as a shared challenge faced by many developing nations navigating the global energy transition.
On corporate accountability, Sunita said regulators, including the Securities Commission, Bursa Malaysia and Bank Negara Malaysia pursued mandatory reporting and disclosure as a practical pathway forward, given that they could not compel businesses to become more sustainable by law alone.
“The thinking is that I cannot force you to be more sustainable. But allocators of capital are reading your report. And when they read your report, it will be very clear whether you understand the climate crisis or if you are paying lip service and this is just a checklist approach,” she said.
She noted that organisations that relied solely on external consultants for their environmental, social and governance reporting, without fostering genuine internal understanding, would find this reflected in the quality of their disclosures.
Sunita said that company bosses can now be taken to court for ignoring climate science, making false green claims or being too slow to change … making climate responsibility no longer just good practice but a legal must.
“Climate pressures are now separating serious business leaders from those who treated sustainability as a fad and those who embrace it stand to gain, offering solutions that are cheaper, faster and greener,” she said.
Sunita said almost no country, Malaysia included, is truly prepared for climate disasters from flooded power grids to workers stranded at home and urged communities and households to take charge rather than wait on governments.
She said that while most countries are still falling short on climate action, China’s breakthrough in capturing 80 per cent of a coal plant’s emissions shows that near-zero fossil fuel pollution is within reach and a major opportunity for all.
“This means we are coming really close to the holy grail of zero-emission fossil fuels,” she said, expressing hope that policymakers and business leaders would recognise the considerable opportunity presented by the global shift toward cleaner energy.
