edotco Malaysia has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MET Malaysia) in a unique public-private cooperation that will form the National Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Network.
Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases. When sunlight strikes the earth’s surface, some of it radiates back toward space as infrared radiation (heat). Greenhouse gases absorb this infrared radiation and trap its heat in the atmosphere. However, human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), agriculture and land clearing – are increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases, creating a greenhouse effect that results in global warming and climate change.
The new system will monitor the following greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO). Air sampling inlets for these gases need to be deployed at adequate heights to minimize the influence of local terrain and ground level activity on the air samples collected. Adequate space for a cabin at the base of the tower to house the monitoring equipment has also been allocated. Based on these requirements, edotco has identified its towers at Gunung Brinchang in Cameron Highlands (Pahang), Gunung Raya, Langkawi (Kedah) and Sabangkoi, Sarikei (Sarawak) to house the respective GHG monitoring systems.
The MoU supports the nation’s commitment to international climate change issues prescribed by the United Nations (UN) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as well as its subsidiary, the WMO-Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO-GAW) program. Currently, Malaysia hosts one of only 30 GAW Global stations in the world, whereby monitoring the greenhouse gases is one of the mandatory observations.
edotco Malaysia Managing Director, Wan Zainal Adileen said of the collaboration, “edotco champions sustainability in all that we do. The opportunity to support MET Malaysia’s commitment to climatological services resonates with our initiatives to continuously bring about positive impacts to the people and nation. We are pleased that our infrastructure and its locations fit perfectly into the purpose of this global initiative. Our business model of telecommunication infrastructure sharing is inherently environmentally friendly as we encourage the co-location of equipment instead of single-operator structures. We are conscious of the far-reaching impacts of our every effort. edotco is privileged to already have the infrastructure required to install the monitoring solutions at their optimum configuration without major modifications or additional outlay. Furthermore, it also fits into our Tower to Community efforts in impacting positively communities in which we operate.”
The sites provided by edotco Malaysia enhance MET Malaysia’s capacity and the country in the field of GHG studies while fulfilling the country’s international obligations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) WMO-GAW, edotco said. It allows for the expansion of the network of national greenhouse gas monitoring stations to Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak. These three new sites, together with the existing Global GAW station in Danum Valley, Sabah will form the National Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Network.
“The strong support of edotco Malaysia in this project will provide a tremendous impact towards contribution by Malaysia in climate change efforts at the global stage. By making available its telecommunications towers to MET Malaysia, edotco helps in the monitoring and collection of important data sets for the submission of comprehensive National Communications (NC) and respective Biennial Update Report (BUR) of Malaysia to the UNFCCC,” said Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, Director-General of the Malaysian Meteorological Department.
He continued, “The project also enhances MET Malaysia’s ability to monitor impacts of the National Greenhouse gases Accounting Framework and at the same time verify the effectiveness of Climate Change Policy, and mitigation measures are undertaken. It will have far-reaching impacts for the nation in the ability to counter-review conclusions of external research on emissions of carbon dioxide and methane in Malaysia. MET Malaysia will also be able to verify Global and Regional Climate Survey models with the observation data obtained in the country.”
The deployed GHG systems are designed to obtain observations in accordance with international standards, therefore ensuring that the GHG composition monitoring program implemented is of high quality. The data obtained will contribute towards the long-term planning to build resilience in the face of extreme weather due to climate change.
Installation of the GHG monitoring systems is underway, with the data collection initial phase expected to be completed by early 2022. MET Malaysia will be sharing the observations under the WMO-GAW platform, thus providing accurate and reliable global GHG data.
