Sustainable Land Transport-2016

1. The transportation sector in Malaysia accounts for approximately 35% of the total energy consumed nationally and produced nearly 50 million metric tons (Mt) of CO2 peryear.  85% of transport emissions, comes from road transport.  Due to the high rate of personal automobile ownership, cars account for about 59% of the overall emissions, while freight is responsible for 27%. 
2. Malaysia had been working with the German Technical Cooperation, Project Transport and Climate Change (GIZ TCC) team to produce a stocktaking report on sustainable transport and climate change. The report provides the picture of the transport sector and transport-related GHG emissions and mitigation policies in Malaysia. This report will be the basis of our mitigation action towards the sustainable transport and climate change.  Finalized in November 2016, this report is timely, as guidance towards our initiative in determining the national contribution for the energy sector.
3. This is going to be a challenging task to Malaysia, as the growing awareness of environmental issues involves various parties and we often find that most of the measures are oriented towards manufacturers and somehow focused on limited and specific areas.  We also noted the challenges in policy, physical and infrastructure to overcome the barriers towards energy efficiency and reducing GHG emissions.
4. Our mitigation actions that are already on-going includes encouraging the usage of public transportation by developing more accessible light commuter rail, shifting the movement from road to rail by introducing the electric train system (ETS), and promoting integrating freight hub to optimize route and load for goods vehicle.
5. The Expert Group on Sustainable Land Transport (EGSLT) under the ASEAN Land Transport Working Group is established to support the Sustainable Transport Strategic Thrust in the Kuala Lumpur Strategic Transport Plan (KLTSP) 2016-2025.  This is a regional level project that aims to develop an ASEAN Strategy to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the land transport sector. The EGSLT is an ad hoc group, to act as consultative platform to mainstream the issue of sustainable transport and to institutionalize it. The EGSLT will be supported by the ASEAN-GIZ TCC. Malaysia is the co-chair for the first EGSLT Meeting which was held in Kuala Lumpur on 10th November 2016. 
6. Malaysia through our Logistics and Trade Facilitation Masterplan supported the sustainable development goals by planning to provide green initiative support as well as promote the efficient urban logistics. One of the strategic shift is to achieve continuous supply chain innovation through the adoption of future trends such as green logistics and urban logistics solutions to ensure that the industry remains relevant to meet future needs.
7. Launched in March 2015, the first phase of the Masterplan focused on debottlenecking. This is the phase where all the root causes that impedes the development of logistics industry being addressed.  On-going initiatives includes improving the last mile connectivity in our major port, Port Klang and enhancing infrastructure capacity at the Padang Besar Terminal, the entry point for trading across borders at our northern part. 
8. Port Klang, our busiest port, ranked 13 in the world busiest ports.  With the rapid demands in logistics services development, the last mile connectivity at the area is prone to the road congestion, critical roads conditions as well as the air pollution due to the gases emitted by the vehicles.  By improving the last mile connectivity, the efficiency of road transportation will be enhanced, resulting in less congestion and less waiting time for trucks and lorries, thus, less emissions.  At the same time this will also encourage other logistics supporting activity in that area. 
9. Padang Besar Terminal is the main entry point for containers movement from our northern neighbor states. It provides movement by using the train from the entry point to the neighboring port, the Penang Port.  For the time being, we are enhancing the yard capacity to accommodate more volume of containers, as well as increasing the efficiency of cargo handling and improving numbers of train services in order to shift the movement of goods from road to rail. 
10. Malaysia is working to provide more support towards the green and sustainable logistics development. Among the initiatives includes promoting the green design and purchasing and reverse logistics and optimizing the routes and load carried by the goods vehicles. Currently, Malaysia and other ASEAN member states are working with the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on promoting the green logistics measure and best practices in the region.