Stabilisation of global greenhouse gas concentrations by planning carbon and energy budgets at city level: case study of the Iskandar Development Region, Malaysia

Abstract

For most of the developing countries, socio-economic development is very often the first priority in national development agenda, thus there are very limited actions on climate change mitigation. Malaysia is one of the fast growing developing countries in Asia. Although the Government recognises the importance of energy saving and emission control, there are still very limited policies to address climate change issues and so far no emission reduction target has been set. The main objectives of this study are thus to look into the long-term carbon budget and to examine the necessary energy budgets, based on the case study of the Iskandar Development Region (IDR). Attempts have been made to set the national emission budgets for Malaysia, and from there, city level carbon budgets for IDR were set. Subsequently, simulations using the System Dynamics based computer simulation model were carried out to estimate the necessary energy budgets to achieve carbon budgets for IDR.