COMMENT | Our fight against climate change

COMMENT | Standing atop Panorama Ridge, above the old mining town of Sungai Lembing, a cauldron of mist gave way to a pockmarked landscape of plantation estates and denuded slopes in the harsh light of day. My unease deepened.

The rush of development and extraction had been highly visible along the drive to the East Coast: thickets of sawmills lining the old roads, despite proud signs pointing towards Tasik Chini, before its ecosystem was wantonly destroyed. This was before the unprecedented climate crises of 2021, before the devastating floods in Germany and China, massive wildfires and heatwaves in temperate zones or decades-long droughts.

Even though things in Malaysia still seemed ordinary, climate-wise, it was hard to ignore the rampant development, pollution and deforestation that I had taken for granted growing up. Our future seemed irrevocably locked into dependency on cheap energy, consumerism and an inability to change things as the environment and climate were sidelined by the discourse on the continued growth of the economy.

But during the same trip, I also...