Malaysian Cities Strengthen Capacity to Attain Financing for Climate Actions

Thirty-four participants from 14 Malaysian cities attended the training on climate financing on 14-15 October 2019 in Seberang Perai and Penang, in conjunction with the 7^th Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF 7). Focusing on overall climate financing process for cities, the training was part of EU’s IUC Asia’s training cycle for cities committed to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate Change and Energy (GCoM) to develop their climate action plans, involving reputable resource persons from international and national institutions including the EU’s Foreign Policy Instrument (FPI), the Joint Research Centre of European Commission (JRC), UN Habitat, Green Climate Fund (GCF), and Malaysian public and private institutions. Previously, three training events have been conducted for Malaysian cities covering the issues of climate change adaptation, mitigation and target setting and climate action planning.

The first day of the training was held in the city of Seberang Perai. The Deputy Mayor of Seberang Perai, Rosnani Mahmod, welcomed the participants and restated Seberang Perai’s commitment to become a low carbon city. Mr Michel Mouchiroud, Deputy Head of the EU’s FPI Team in Asia-Pacific, opened the training and delivered remarks on the EU’s support to on climate change mitigation and adaptation actions including the capacity building on municipal financing. Dr. Bernadia Tjandradewi, the Secretary General of UCLG-ASPAC/Global Covenant of Mayors South East Asia, referered to the GCoM’s recently announced Climate Finance Gap Fund.

Pablo Gándara and Piero Remitti from the EU’s IUC Asia programme, explained the targeted support to Asian cities. In the first session on climate financing policies and tools in Malaysia, Ahmad Farid of Ministry of Energy, Science & Technology, Environment and Climate Change Malaysia presented the climate finance landscape in Malaysia.

In the session of fiscal and financial arrangements and best practices at global level, Pablo Gandara, Team Leader, IUC Asia, moderated the session involving Hanah Paik (CDP), Katarzyna Rzucidlo (GCF) and Boyd Jouman (Iskandar Regional Development Authority) as speakers. It covered the issues of city financing best practice and experiences in Asian cities, creating revenue stream from climate action and the example from Iskandar Regional Development Authority about fiscal arrangements for climate action.

The next session was entitled the investment cycle and private sector involvement. Kamaradzaman M. Bakri of Malaysian Green Technology Corporation presented the green technology financing scheme in Malaysia and representatives from Malaysian private sectors including the state electricity company and state water company spoke about the their perspectives in low-carbon resilient infrastructure. The first-day training was concluded with a summary of what public and private sectors look into an investment in cities.

The second day training was held in Penang, on the side of 7^th Asia Pacific Urban Forum. The training participants attended the opening of APUF 7 between the sessions.

The training started with a presentation from Jacob Kalmakoff, UN Habitat. He explained about the Climate Finance Gap Fund recently launched. After joining the opening of APUF 7, Paolo Bertoldi of JRC European Commission presented on financing the climate action plan, and the training was concluded with a group activity on building business plan for city climate projects led by Enrique Rebolledo, IUC Asia consultant, that encouraged participants to develop a city climate action plan financing proposal.