Daily Express Subscriber
Sign in to your account.

ONE of Sabah’s greatest weaknesses in climate planning is the fragmented and often inaccessible nature of environmental and disaster-related data.

Large amounts of information already exist within universities, government agencies, consultants, utility providers and research institutions.

Studies have already been conducted on rainfall trends, river systems, landslide risks, coastal erosion, drought vulnerability, agricultural impacts and environmental degradation. However, much of this information remains compartmentalised within separate institutions that rarely integrate findings into a unified framework accessible to policymakers, researchers or the wider public.

This approach is increasingly unsustainable in an era where climate resilience depends heavily on coordination, transparency and informed planning.

Climate-risk information should not be unnecessarily hidden behind bureaucracy or treated as though it belongs exclusively to agencies rather than the public whose lives may depend upon it. Sabah urgently requires a comprehensive climate-risk mapping system integrating flood-prone zones, landslide hotspots, drought-vulnerable districts, coastal erosion risks and infrastructure vulnerabilities into a unified state-wide platform.

Universities must also become central partners within this process. Valuable research should not remain buried within academic or bureaucratic silos when such information could contribute directly to public preparedness and long-term resilience planning. Communities cannot prepare effectively if they are denied access to the information necessary to understand the risks surrounding them.

Food Security Must Become Part of Climate Planning

Sabah can no longer treat food security as merely an agricultural issue separate from climate resilience.

The state remains heavily dependent on imported food and external supply chains, leaving Sabah vulnerable during periods of severe climate disruption.

Yet discussions surrounding food resilience often continue to revolve around isolated agricultural initiatives without being integrated into a broader long-term climate adaptation strategy.

If prolonged droughts reduce agricultural production while floods simultaneously disrupt transport and logistics systems, food insecurity can escalate rapidly.

Sabah therefore requires far more serious planning regarding emergency food reserves, protected agricultural zones, resilient crop systems, contingency logistics and long-term food sustainability under climate stress conditions.

The issue is no longer simply whether Sabah can produce more food during ordinary times, but whether the state can maintain food stability during prolonged periods of environmental disruption when multiple systems may begin failing simultaneously.

Water and Energy Security Will Define Sabah’s Resilience

Water security may ultimately become one of Sabah’s greatest long-term vulnerabilities in a changing climate.

Many districts already experience recurring water disruptions during periods of stress, and stronger El Niño cycles combined with prolonged drought conditions are likely to place even greater pressure on reservoirs, treatment facilities and distribution systems in the years ahead.

Sabah therefore requires a much clearer understanding of which districts face the greatest drought vulnerability, which infrastructure systems are most exposed to disruption and what contingency frameworks exist should prolonged shortages occur.

The same concerns apply to energy security. Floods, landslides and extreme weather events can damage transmission infrastructure, substations and generation systems, while prolonged heat conditions may simultaneously increase electricity demand across the state.

Climate resilience therefore involves far more than simply increasing generation capacity. It also requires ensuring that infrastructure systems remain operational during periods of severe environmental stress when ordinary assumptions about weather stability no longer hold true.

Ultimately, resilience means ensuring that communities continue to have reliable access to food, water and electricity even during prolonged climate-related disruptions.

Early Warning Systems Must Become Essential Infrastructure

One of the most immediate and practical reforms Sabah can implement is the development of a modern and fully integrated early warning system.

The reality is that fully upgrading Sabah’s infrastructure resilience against climate change will likely require billions of ringgit and many years of sustained investment.

Strengthening flood mitigation systems, upgrading water infrastructure, improving rural connectivity, reinforcing slopes, modernising drainage systems and building climate-resilient infrastructure across a geographically challenging state such as Sabah cannot be accomplished quickly.

However, while those longer-term structural improvements remain necessary, Sabah still requires measures capable of protecting lives immediately and effectively in the meantime. This is why early warning systems are no longer optional improvements but essential public infrastructure.

Too many lives have already been lost because communities received inadequate warning before floods or landslides occurred, despite the fact that the technology necessary to improve such systems already exists. Places such as Hong Kong and Taiwan have long demonstrated how effective weather alert systems can provide communities with valuable preparation time before severe weather events occur.

Sabah should already possess district-level warning systems capable of issuing real-time alerts for floods, landslides, dangerous rainfall levels, dam releases and extreme weather conditions through mobile phones, SMS notifications, local radio systems and coordinated community networks.

Most Sabahans already carry mobile phones, meaning the primary challenge is no longer technological feasibility but rather institutional urgency, coordination and prioritisation.

While early warning systems cannot prevent disasters from occurring, they can significantly reduce fatalities and allow communities valuable time to evacuate vulnerable individuals, secure essential belongings and prepare for incoming threats.

For a geographically vulnerable state such as Sabah, early warning systems should already be regarded as essential public infrastructure rather than optional future improvements.

Climate Laws Must Include the Human Dimension

Sabah has already taken an important legislative step through the enactment of the Sabah Climate Change and Carbon Governance Enactment 2025, which establishes a legal framework for climate governance and carbon-related activities within the state.

However, climate governance cannot become merely a technocratic exercise driven primarily by carbon markets, investment structures and regulatory mechanisms while treating affected communities as secondary considerations within broader policy discussions.

Too often, environmental and carbon-related policies are developed through highly top-down processes without sufficiently involving indigenous communities, rural populations, farmers, fishermen and the people whose lives remain directly tied to forests, rivers and ancestral lands.

Forests are not simply carbon assets waiting to be monetised, nor are rivers merely environmental units within administrative frameworks. For many Sabahans, particularly indigenous communities, these landscapes represent livelihood, heritage, identity and long-standing cultural relationships with the land itself.

The Sabah Climate Change and Carbon Governance Enactment 2025 will therefore ultimately be judged not only by how effectively it regulates carbon activities, but also by whether climate governance within Sabah genuinely incorporates transparency, public participation and meaningful community engagement from the beginning rather than after major policy directions have already been determined.

Climate policies imposed without trust are likely to generate resistance and social tension, whereas policies developed together with affected communities stand a far greater chance of achieving legitimacy and long-term success.

Sabah Still Has Time to Prepare, But the Window Is Narrowing

Sabah still possesses significant strengths that could allow the state to become a serious leader in climate resilience and environmental governance. The state has capable researchers, strong universities, immense biodiversity assets and communities possessing deep environmental knowledge accumulated across generations.

What Sabah lacks is not intelligence or potential, but a greater level of urgency and institutional coordination proportionate to the scale of the threat that is emerging.

The floods, droughts, landslides and recurring water disruptions already occurring across the state should no longer be viewed merely as isolated incidents requiring temporary responses after each event occurs.

Increasingly, they appear to reflect deeper structural vulnerabilities that climate change is likely to intensify further over the coming decades, particularly if another severe or super El Niño event materialises within the region.

The possibility of such a climate event should already be forcing Sabah into much more serious long-term planning involving food security, water resilience, infrastructure adaptation, emergency preparedness, climate-risk mapping and integrated governance frameworks. Yet climate resilience is still too often approached incrementally and administratively, as though there remains ample time for gradual adaptation.

The real danger facing Sabah is therefore not simply climate change in the abstract, but the possibility that climate pressures may now be accelerating faster than the state’s institutions, infrastructure systems and long-term planning mechanisms are evolving to cope with them.

If that gap continues widening, the eventual consequences will extend far beyond environmental degradation alone and will increasingly affect economic stability, public health, food availability, infrastructure resilience and the daily security of communities throughout Sabah.

For that reason, climate resilience can no longer remain a peripheral environmental discussion. It must now become one of the central organising priorities of governance and long-term state planning in Sabah.

The views expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express. If you have something to share, write to us at: Forum@dailyexpress.com.my