Case study of carbon emission intensity for Melaka state: its planning implication

Integrating low-carbon-oriented urban planning into the world heritage site of Melaka State may challenge the objective of achieving its green technology state. The study’s goal is to calculate the intensity of carbon emissions in Melaka State and identify the sectors that contribute the most to those emissions in order to differentiate the planning implications of climate mitigation action. Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions framework of assessment, or GPC, was deployed to calculate various greenhouse gas emissions. Time series data from 2013 to 2017 was collected from various sectors that contribute to carbon emissions in relation to respective government agencies and stakeholders in Melaka state. The data was then computed using the BASIC+ software and analysed using the GPC framework. The result depicted a steady increase of carbon emission equivalence from 4,837,836 tCO2e in 2014 to 6,295,918 tCO2e in 2017, where the top three emitters; stationary energy, transportation, and waste, recorded 98.5% of the total carbon emission of 6,295,918 million tCO2e in the year of 2017. The carbon emission intensity increases in per-capita emissions from 6.19 tCO2e (2013) to 6.88 tCO2e (2017), illustrating that each individual contributes to Melaka’s increase in GHG emissions. Nevertheless, population growth records a decline in emission intensity of 0.189 tCO2e (2013) to 0.176 tCO2e (2017). With green technology intervention that reduces carbon emissions, the reduction indicates a U-shaped Kuznet curve for developed country status. Despite the constraints in the contemporary urban setting of Melaka’s historic city centre as a world heritage site, the study suggests that numerous activities that promote green mobility, green technologies, and green initiatives have an impact on Melaka’s overall carbon emission intensity at the individual level. Shifting from primary and secondary economic activity to tertiary economic activity and polycentric low carbon development will assist Melaka in meeting its goal of becoming a green technology city-state