DAP’s Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin made the call specifically to deputy chief minister Jeffrey Kitingan, one of the proponents of the controversial Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA).
“I urge Kitingan and the Sabah government to hold their horses,” he said in a statement here today.
“Instead of blindly bulldozing the NCA, which was signed on Oct 30 silently and without due consultation, he should get the house rules clean first by getting the Sabah government involved in the development of the single domestic platform market (for carbon trading).”
The state government has a provisional agreement with Singaporean firm Hoch Standard Pte Ltd under the NCA for the conservation and protection of tropical rainforests through the monetisation of carbon stored in standing trees, in addition to natural capital benefits in the forest environment.
An initial area of 600,000ha is to be identified as a pilot scheme under the deal. Only upon the success of this would the state government consider approving more areas, up to a potential of two million hectares.
The state government is said to have agreed to the terms of the deal which is to last for 100 years.
The agreement, according to Sabah forestry authorities, will not allow exploitation of the state’s protected forests.
Despite the assurances by the state forestry department, Sabah NGOs continue to question the deal, not over carbon trading but particularly over its lack of transparency. The agreement only came to light after the media broke the story.
In his statement today, Chan said deputy energy and natural resources minister Ali Biju had in his answer in Parliament on Dec 15 said the Sabah government had failed to comply with the National Guidance on Forest Carbon Market over the NCA with Hoch Standard.
Chan said Ali told him the guidelines were already in place. It outlined the requirement for all state governments to report on forest carbon market activities in their states.
He said Ali noted that the Sabah government violated these guidelines when the ministry was not notified of the NCA.
Single platform
Meanwhile, Chan urged the Sabah and Sarawak governments to actively take part in the policy-making process over domestic carbon trading.
This came after an announcement by environment and water minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man of a single platform for domestic carbon trading that is being jointly developed by his ministry, the finance ministry and Bursa Malaysia.
“What’s the role of the state governments, especially Sabah and Sarawak, in deciding the policy framework for carbon trading?
“Under the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution, forests are under the state list. This means the states have exclusive rights to deal with their forests and derive revenue from them, including granting logging concessions.
“The question is whether the federal government can create laws to dictate and regulate forest-derived carbon trading.
“Will the Sabah and Sarawak governments just blindly accept whatever rules imposed by the federal government?”
Chan said it made no financial sense for state governments to confine themselves within the domestic market when they could sell their carbon credit to foreign companies at a higher price.
“As such, I call upon the Sabah and Sarawak governments to stop being passive but to take an active part in the ongoing development of this single platform for domestic carbon trading.”