KUALA LUMPUR: Eager to do more to deal with climate change, the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has included an RM7mil allocation in its 2023 budget for investments in green technology.
Mayor Datuk Seri Mahadi Che Ngah said a meeting was recently held with the Energy Commission to discuss the initiatives that were taken by other countries to deal with the changing climate.
"I found out that investors, especially European ones, prefer to do business with entities or premises that are green-certified," he said during the budget presentation at Menara DBKL 1 here on Wednesday (Jan 4).
This year's budget was worth RM2.604bil, a 3.7% decrease from last year.
Narrating further, Mahadi said the climate fund comprised two pillars; namely operational and development, which cost RM2mil and RM5mil, respectively.
Several plans were being made with the allocation, noted Mahadi, which included a feasibility study for setting up a cooling district facility in the capital city, among others.
A district cooling system (DCS) distributes cooling capacity in the form of chilled water from a central source to multiple developments in the vicinity through a network of pipes for space and process cooling.
This centralised method of providing cooling is significantly more efficient than each building installing its own cooling system.
A DCS, according to Mahadi, could help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released, which was in line with DBKL's aspiration of cutting down emissions by 70% by 2030.
On a related matter, the mayor said some 800 DBKL employees took the LRT daily to come to work this year, which he estimated helped to reduce carbon emissions by 3,000 tonnes.
Separately, Mahadi said DBKL was mulling the installation of more closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) soon to help with flood monitoring and enforcement activities.
This would be in addition to the 5,000 existing cameras installed inside the capital that were used for traffic monitoring.
"Recently, there was an incident where someone had desecrated the national flag. Thankfully, the act was captured by the CCTV and the culprit was caught within five hours," said Mahadi.
The 2023 budget also touched on the need to tackle the traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur, with some RM266.4mil being allocated for upgrading and building new roads.
Some RM20mil was set aside for road widening projects in Jalan Yew and Jalan Sungai Besi, while another RM14mil was allocated to upgrade Jalan Tun Razak, Jalan Tun Ismail, and Jalan Ipoh.
There was also a RM57.3mil allocation to resurface damaged roads in the capital, noted Mahadi.
