Cities now need to move toward implementing concrete measures contained in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Numerous funding mechanisms are now available from climate funds, multilateral development banks, and development cooperation partners. However, local governments often lack the capacity, knowledge and resources to prepare bankable project proposals.
The GCoM and the German and Luxembourg Government announced City Climate Finance Gap Fund which intends to support project preparation activities for low-carbon and resilient urban infrastructure. Project preparation is an essential step in achieving project bankability. The preparation typically provides technical and financial support for the undertaking of the technical, environmental, legal, social and economic feasibility studies. It is hoping the project preparation will be able to mature the project from concept to the investment readiness stage.
Through on-line assistance, IUC Asia supports the concept note preparation according to the GCoM Gap Fund to Muar City. Organized by IUC Asia, the consultation meeting with Muar Municipal Council was held on 30 April 2020 and participated by researchers of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and representatives of the Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA Malaysia). The goal of the meeting was to provide the technical input on the project candidates.
Muar is encouraged to develop renewable energy projects for contributing to the Malaysian government target in achieving 20% renewable energy capacity mix by 2025. The identified renewable energy sources in Muar include solar farm, landfill gas utilization, biogas and to lesser extent biomass.
Muar is home to the furniture industry that contributes close to 60% of the country’s furniture exports. The wood waste is left over from this industry which potentially turns out to be a biomass resource. The meeting highlighted that biomass plays an important role in the future’s economy by contributing to decarbonise the energy systems and providing GHG emission savings.
The outcome of the meeting also suggested to explore an integrated approach to treat waste into circular bio-resources. The biogas plant, transforming organic waste into biogas, is the hub in the future circular economy. The municipal solid waste and waste from industrial processes can be channeled through biogas digester and converted to electricity and nutrient-rich organic fertilizer.
