Govt considers implementing carbon tax, says Nik Nazmi

The Star

The government is considering implementing a carbon tax in the country, says Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.  The Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister said discussions between the Finance Ministry and the World Bank are ongoing.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/dyn9nhpw   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00I praise the relationship between the government and the state government.

00:05But the question is, Minister,

00:08the efforts that you mentioned earlier through the BC Act, the Carbon Exchange Programme,

00:13is one of the programmes that I think we need to strengthen.

00:19Because the VCM, Voluntary Carbon Markets, that we introduced in 2003,

00:25also needs to be strengthened and enhanced.

00:28How do you see this?

00:31Do we want to be happy forever?

00:34If we want to compare it to the IDX Carbon in Indonesia,

00:37they are a compensatory to the energy production companies,

00:40and Malaysia is willing to turn to the compensatory.

00:43And there are many companies involved in this VCM.

00:46Secondly, you mentioned earlier the carbon mining industry.

00:50And of course, the low pricing of carbon credit is also an issue.

00:56Right now, through the BC Act, we have more or less 3.5 USD per metric tonne

01:03of carbon dioxide equivalents.

01:05If we want to compare it to Singapore, there is a significant difference.

01:10There is a Carbon Pricing Act.

01:12Will we also move towards that?

01:15Lastly, Mr Speaker,

01:17I ask the government to give confidence.

01:21What is the government's effort to ensure that the carbon market mechanism

01:28will be strengthened, especially in the forestry sector?

01:34Thank you.

01:35Honourable Minister.

01:39Thank you, Honourable Speaker.

01:42First of all, we agree that many more things can be done.

01:49One of the things we need to be aware of is that in some countries,

01:53for example in Singapore, they have carbon taxation.

01:59This pushes many companies to look at the carbon market

02:03as an alternative to offset their carbon.

02:08And recently, we had a meeting with my colleague in Thailand.

02:14Thailand also has a Thailand Voluntary Emission Reduction, or TIVA,

02:19which means that if the carbon exchange companies use international resources,

02:26such as VERA,

02:27but TIVA is a domestic standard established in Thailand.

02:32So we have stated our readiness for ASEAN as a whole.

02:37If we can share our experience,

02:39looking at our experience in Singapore and also in Thailand,

02:43as an example,

02:44and also in Indonesia,

02:45which is one of the leading countries,

02:47so that we can do this without waiting for a long time.

02:51For example, the KUAMUT project,

02:53the time it took to get the VERA voucher was quite a long time.

02:57I think from the initiation until it was put into the market this month,

03:02it took about 10 years, or more than 10 years.

03:04So we want to look at those things.

03:06And in our country, the government, through the Ministry of Finance,

03:13discussed with the World Bank to advance,

03:16whether we can see the feasibility of carbon exchange in our country.

03:22So that discussion is underway.

03:25And for us, this is one of the things that we will take into account

03:29in the process of reviving the state climate change RUU that is being done now.

03:33So I believe that if we have that framework,

03:35the price will be better than what we have in the real estate market now,

03:44where the price is quite low.

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