Carbon dioxide emission and climate change impact in Kuala Lumpur / Ahmad Afiq Shahidan

Urban metabolism study is important to identify greenhouse gas and the climate change impact in the city. Greenhouse gas emission in the city is the main cause of current climate change such as global warming. Carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas that becomes an indicator in alarming climate change globally while city is the medium where the source of carbon dioxide released due to urbanisation and transportation sector. This problem lead to unpredictable impact to the environment, social and economic direct or indirectly. Kuala Lumpur, a capital city that experience rapid growth is chosen to determine its input-output flow while Bukit Bintang road and Tunku Abdul Rahman road are chosen to conduct ambient air monitoring due to traffic congestion problem in the city centre. The study found that carbon dioxide emission from both roads in Kuala Lumpur contribute to 376 ppm less carbon dioxide level. It was proved that transportation was a vital source of greenhouse gas emission in the city. Meanwhile, the input-output analysis in Kuala Lumpur showed a significant increase between year 2010 and 2016 where electricity input, food input, water input, gas released output and wastewater output were rising due to urbanisation and increasing population in city. In contrast, the enforcement of mandatory waste management by the government has resulted in the decrease of solid waste output in Kuala Lumpur. The greenhouse gas released output in term of Global Warming Potential from the input-output analysis was 5.88 MMtCO 2 eq. The findings in this study shows that uncontrolled carbon dioxide emission from the transportation and unsustainable input-output flow in the city in a long run will cause climate change impact. Thus, this study can be used to formulate strategies to overcome the issues.