YET another book on climate change? To be honest I shuddered when asked to review “Saving the Planet: Climate and Environmental Lessons from Malaysia and Beyond”.
For one I was 40 pages into my friend Leslie Lopez’s arguably juicier “The Seige Within”, which accounts the journalist’s personal account of the unravelling of the 1MDB scandal.
But then again Saving the Planet was also written by a friend – who happens to be Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.
So the 1MDB literature was book-marked for what I dreaded was going to be the yawn-inducing ramblings of a politician. The real challenge I felt was not about reading the book, but telling my friend the Minister that his book was a cure to my insomnia!
How wrong I was. Seeing how Nik Nazmi does not fit the mould of a typical politician, I should have known better. Sorry Nik!
Saving the Planet is a page turning mission statement of a young Malaysian worried about the future. Only difference is he is actually in the position to do something significant about it.
While it can be considered a snapshot of his plans, at just over 300 pages it does not go into the intricate and delicate details of how sensible plans get derailed by “pragmatic” interests.
While there is an emphasis on climate justice, the book touches on displacement, corruption and human trafficking, where the author articulates how these are connected to climate issues.
The author does not preach in a Greenpeace kind of way not admonish like that irritating school truant Gretha Thunberg.
He instead draws from his own work and observations as a minister, as well as experiencing the monsoon floods in Kelantan – his parents’ home state.
The influence of Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) on the author is evident in the book, with the regular ode to his alma mater, including camping trips to rivers and jungles that have probably by now become mere streams and housing estates.
He also reveals a personal mission of sorts, symbolically receiving the baton from his father Nik Ahmad Nik Hassan who was the top civil servant in the then Ministry of Energy, Telecoms and Post, having served as secretary-general from 1978 until his retirement in 1988.
(This is detailed in another book by Nik Nazmi “In the Public Service: The Life of My Father Nik Ahmad”)
Thirty-four years later his son would helm the same ministry and continue the work on energy transition. And it was Nik Nazmi’s first on his to do list with the lifting of energy export ban and paving the way for subsidy rationalisation.
It is these kind of anecdotes that makes this book enjoyable while at the same time informative — and providing the reader with a few “aha!” moments.
Nik Nazmi the minister’s own policies and priorities are obvious, for instance when he writes about tree planting projects – the favourite CSR theater of politicians and corporations alike.
While planting trees is a good thing, Nik Nazmi opines that we shouldn’t be cutting trees in the first place!
His decision to pick the less glamorous Parcel F building for his ministry office because it is more eco-friendly, as opposed to the swanky Putrajaya Boulevard which has a direct view of the Prime Minister’s office is also indicative of where his priorities lie. And it is hopeful.
There is a laugh-inducing chapter of the introduction of batik for MPs, and ditching the tie, which its implementation, ironically was made difficult by a conservative Opposition – PAS with their turbans and Bersatu which championed Malay culture.
To sum up, Saving the Planet may come across to some as the wish list of a young idealistic Gen Y who pays cursory observation to the realities of the world around him.
But it is also the mission statement of one of the world’s youngest eco ministers and that too of a young democracy that is delicately balancing its environmental responsibilities and its obligations to make itself a high income nation while addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.
The book provides a good insight on how Nik Nazmi is navigating this narrow river of priorities and gives one hope that he is heading in the right direction.
“Saving the Planet: Climate and Environmental Lessons from Malaysia and Beyond” is published by Penguin Random House and is available at leading bookstores and online. – January 18, 2025
Terence Fernandez is Editor in Chief of Big Boom Media, which publishes Scoop.
