E-Portfolio 2 - Government’s Policies That Contribute to Reduce the Problem of Global Warming

According to statistics (An Inconvenient Truth, 2006), the actual measurement of temperature increases every year especially in the recent years. Ten hottest years on record have occurred in the last 14 years, and the hottest of all was 2005. The increase in global temperature is resulted from the increase of the amount of emission of green house gases which trap the infrared radiation from sunlight and heat up the earth.

In the mid-1990s, my home country, Malaysia ranked among 50 nations with the world's highest industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which totalled 70.5 million metric tons per year, a per capita level of 3.74 metric tons per year. Statistics shows that both industrial and automobile sectors are the main contributor to the carbon emissions. As a result, Clean-air legislation was adopted in 1998 to monitor and control the carbon dioxide emissions in the country. Under this legislation, discharge of oil by vessels in Malaysian waters is prohibited as well.

Under The Environmental Quality Act of 1974 administered by the Division of Environment of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment, housing developers have to plan and space out area to plant trees in the housing area in order to get their development projects approved. As one of the largest timber exporting countries, Malaysia has set strict rules to make sure the developers replant the tree for each tree they have chopped down. They are also being restricted from cutting the trees which are younger than 15 years old. Besides, open burning is also prohibited.

Individual who found guilty under The Environment Quality Act of 1974 will be subjected to heavy fines, mandatory caning or jail terms (depending on the situation). The licenses of commercial companies will be forfeited for committing similar types of crime.

In conclusion, besides government’s policies, each individual have to take initiative to help reduce the problem of global warming. Each one of us contributes actively to global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use and the car we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make them happen. (Al Gore, 2006)


Al Gore (2006). An Inconvenient Truth.