KUALA LUMPUR: After building the very first methane coalition in Malaysia, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) hosted a first-year anniversary gathering with its local partners – the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development, Malaysia (CETDEM), the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC), CERAH, Science Media Centre (SMC) Malaysia and Universiti Technology Petronas (UTP).
The gathering was held at Spaces@ Platinum Sentral, Kuala Lumpur recently.
Climate change is impacting the planet faster than scientists predicted. Thus, EDF, the pioneer in addressing climate change decided to spread its wings to the Asian region. This coalition is led by Dr Shareen Yawanarajah, the Director, of Global Energy Transition, EDF and assisted by Emily Oi, Asia Pacific Consultant, Energy Transition, EDF.
“EDF has led scientific initiatives that focused the world’s attention on the importance of reducing methane emissions. We are working in Malaysia for over a year now, and have formed valuable partnerships with our local partners,” said Shareen during her speech.
She said EDF’s advocacy in Malaysia focuses on empowering local scientific communities and civil society organisations to produce localised science-based policy recommendations and materials on methane reduction. EDF also supports a significant amount of work on methane awareness and capacity building for the Malaysian audience, including but not limited to industry players, government, research institutions, and media. EDF facilitates these efforts by leveraging on international support including financial and knowledge transfer.
According to her, wasted methane is a lost commercial opportunity because it is a product that could otherwise be captured and sold, relieving current gas market pressures, adding revenue, and progressing decarbonisation efforts.
“Both carbon dioxide and methane play a distinct role in global warming and most methane from oil and gas industries can be mitigated immediately,” said Dr Stefan Schwietzke, International Senior Scientist, EDF, during his presentation.
Schwietzke further elaborated that three limitations in methane studies are difficulty in analysing the trends, budget, and understanding the mechanism.
The gathering also witnessed a presentation by the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO). IMEO is an independent, transparent and complementary initiative at the centre of the methane ecosystem. Dr James France, Senior Scientist, EDF, explained their collaborative work with The Royal Holloway, the University of London on urban methane emission monitoring.
He said a mobile vehicle laboratory is used to identify and quantify sources of methane. The mobile surveys can potentially extract three key pieces of information which are location and emission distribution, estimation of emission strength and emission sources.
He said from this information, mitigation and detailed monitoring strategies can be developed. Discussions are ongoing with local institutions to study urban methane emissions in South Korea and Japan.
EDF is also looking forward to working with Malaysia’s new government under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership to deliver their climate promises and generate good-paying clean energy jobs.
Message from Partners
“Our collaboration with EDF aims to support the understanding and transparency surrounding methane and other emissions from the Oil & Gas sector and to explore linkages to the palm oil sector. Through enhanced stakeholder engagement and public awareness, the project thus aims to promote opportunities for greater policy ambition leading to reduced methane emissions.”
-Dr Helena Varkey, Vice President of CERAH
“CETDEM’s collaboration with EDF on methane reduction and management supports our advocacy efforts on climate change action. It provides us with the opportunity to support Malaysia’s effort in implementing its Nationally Determined Contribution and fulfilling its Global Methane Pledge. Importantly, it contributes to mitigating climate change at the global level in the next 20 to 30 years by bringing in experts for knowledge-sharing, capacity building, and to increase awareness of what is economically possible.”
- Dr Zelina Zaiton Ibrahim, Observer to the Board of Directors of CETDEM
“Media plays a vital role in creating awareness about climate change and advocating for policies to reduce methane emissions. Through our collaboration with EDF, we aim to support journalists by creating a network of credible experts in the field and subsequently increasing public awareness on the topic of methane and climate change through media engagement and organising industry workshops for the Oil & Gas sector.”
–Tan Su Lin, Co-founder of Science Media Centre Malaysia
“MABIC believes in sustainable development and when EDF approached us to collaborate in a methane reduction campaign, our goals aligned. There are untapped areas in the oil and gas industry that offer solutions for methane emissions. There is international funding to take action to reduce methane. EDF has the network and expertise to support this cause. I hope the oil and gas players and relevant government agencies could work together towards reducing methane emission.”
-Ts. Dr Mahaletchumy Arujanan, Chief Executive Director, Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC)
