KUCHING: Various initiatives can be done to ensure that everyone breathe clean air, said Deputy Minister for Energy and Environmental Sustainability Dr Hazland Abang Hipni.
According to him, today’s society had high awareness of healthcare, particularly in terms of dietary selection and exercise, but the relevance of air quality was often overlooked.
“If air quality is not managed well, it will have a negative impact on people.
“To overcome this problem, various initiatives can be done such as monitoring the Air Pollution Index (API).
“API is a common and easiest method to describe air quality. The larger the API value, the higher the level of pollution.”
Elaborating further, Dr Hazland, who is also Demak Laut assemblyman, said API was calculated based on the concentration of six major pollutants, namely ozone on the earth’s surface (O), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO), sulfur dioxide (SO), fine dust less than 10 microns (PM10) as well as fine dust less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5).
“Apart from monitoring air quality, the transition of energy sources to renewable sources can also be implemented in stages.
“Renewable energy is sustainable and does not produce high levels of pollution.
The sources include sunlight, wind, water, biomass and tidal.
“Unlike traditional energy sources like coal, gas, and oil, renewable energy will not deplete — it will only be depleted due to the size of the resource or natural growth.
“These resources are a critical component of a long-term energy strategy that allows for current development without jeopardising future generations.”
He went on to say that another thing that could be done to maintain air quality was to invest in a public transportation system that uses clean energy.
According to him, this would involve shifting the use of fossil fuel-based vehicles to environmentally friendly green transportation that uses renewable energy such as solar, biofuel, hydro and wind.
“Among the types and systems of transportation that can be categorised as green transportation are bicycles, electric bicycles, electric cars, green trains (electric and battery/ultra battery/capacitor based), vehicle sharing, electric/hybrid buses and walking.
“Efforts towards clean air quality is a shared responsibility. “Every citizen has an equal responsibility in ensuring all of us can breathe clean, comfortable and quality air.”
Dr Hazland also anticipated that all of these environmental preservation activities would be supported and garner public attention, allowing normal human norms to be replaced with new and better ones.
