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The Answer Is Clearly Yes!

And Najib himself, together with his cronies over many years, is as culpable as anyone. These destroyers of Malaysia’s natural habitat, resulting in vast climate changing emissions, have included the leadership of Sarawak and Sabah and various royal families who have cashed in the forests and rolled out huge plantations at the expense of indigenous people.

Malaysia’s land and agriculture could have been developed much more sustainably and with the benefit of all the people in mind, but instead it has been turned into a destructive resource grab in order to line the pockets of a handful of decision makers as quickly as possible – corruptly and illegally in very, very many cases.

So, Najib asks the question having presided over the process for years whilst the rest of the world already knows the answer, having observed the situation in Malaysia and faced only denial of the facts and defiance of concerned criticism by the leaders of the country.

As European countries and the US have sought to implement responsible sourcing in their markets Malaysia has responded with accusations and legal complaints about the impact on their irresponsible businesses.

Other countries (like the present government of Indonesia) have more sensibly sought to work with the global campaign to mitigate climate change and address bad practices – which is why they are being taken in as partners, offered injections of climate change cash and invited to the right meetings in the lead up to COP in the UK at the end of this year.

Do Malaysia’s decision makers care about such matters, as long as they can still find resources to cut down and sell to China to make themselves rich whilst others suffer?

Under the present government plainly not. Or at least that is the conclusion of the leading countries who have in turn blackballed Malaysia from their meeting.

• 29 Mar 2021
• BM 翻译
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