21 cities here for inaugural GCoM meet
Published on: Monday, July 15, 2019
By: Kan Yaw Chong
KOTA KINABALU: Twenty-one cities and local authorities from across Malaysia will be here to attend the three-day inaugural Global Covenant of Mayor for Energy and Climate Change (GCoM) meeting on July 18-20.
The event at Kinabalu Hyatt Regency will be officiated by International Trade and Industry Minister Darell Leiking, who is also the Penampang Member of Parliament.
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Organising Chairman Freddy Ekol (pic), who is also a member of the Penampang District Council, said the District Council will officially sign up on July 20 to be a member of GCoM – a coalition of cities which has a total membership of about 10,000 around the world.
“Training and workshop on climate change, mitigation and adaptations, risk and vulnerability assessment, preparation of action plans will form the main agendas of the first two days,” Ekol said.
According to Boyd Joeman, Head of Environment of the Iskandar Malaysia Regional Development Authority who had played a key role in bringing GCoM to Sabah, speakers and trainers include EU-hailed Piero Remitti, a Lead Expert from the International Urban Co-operation. Others are well-known Malaysian planner Professor Ho who is an authority in low carbon economy in Malaysia, Dr Justin Sentian, lecturer at UMS on climate change, and Assemblywoman Jannie Lasimbang who will speak on renewal and alternative energy.
Ekol had said he wanted Penampang’s recurring flood issue to be part of the agenda.
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Professor Ho said GCoM meets often discussed related issues and as such, there is little question the flood issue will be talked about in the context of climate change.
Joeman said Penampang‘s recurring flood issue would definitely be discussed under the main thrust on how to prepare action plans that will include an understanding of the problem and ways to combat the problem.
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“Actually the 21 cities and local authorities from throughout Malaysia were involved in Module 1 training in Iskandar Malaysia Johor in March and Module 2 in Kuala Lumpur in May,” he noted.
“Module 3 training will take place in KK, hosted by the Penampang District Council.
“Module 3 will focus on training cities and local authorities like Penampang, Tawau and Kota Kinabalu and other cites on how to prepare draft climate action plans.
“Trainers are from the EU (IUC Asia and UCLG ASPAC), Prof Ho of UTM and Iskandar Malaysia and all Malaysian cities attending will share their climate-related policies and programmes in action,” he added.
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