00:00:02

Speaker 1

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

00:00:09

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Quynh Le Vo and I work as the climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth, Finland. Today I am really excited to talk about climate action and youth activism in Malaysia with Farhana Shukor. Farhana has over four years of experience in climate advocacy in both local and international NGOs. She serves as the co-focal point for the Malaysian youth delegation for Climate Change and was also the storytelling working group coordinator at the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition. Last year, she was also the deputy project lead for the Malaysian Local Conference of Youth, where the issue of loss and damage was included in the agenda for the first time. I'm really glad that Farhana agreed to come on the podcast, given her extensive knowledge about loss and damage because I really sense that this issue will become more and more important in the climate discussions and I'm really glad we'll get to talk about it a little bit today. So welcome, Farhana, great to have you on.

00:01:22

Speaker 3

Thanks for having me.

00:01:23

Speaker 2

So first things first, I was wondering if you could give our listeners some of your background and if there's something specifically that brought you to work in the climate change space, something in your previous experience or interests.

00:01:37

Speaker 3

My current work in the climate space has been a combination of different experiences throughout the years, and the climate issue first made an impact when I learned of industrialized farming, which I learned is kind of common with everyone, and how actions impacts the climate. I explored and learned more about the climate crisis when I began my master’s and research on crop insurance and from there I joined different NGOs. So finally, me and a fellow climate advocate created bumii to take our advocacy a step further.

00:02:06

Speaker 2

Oh, that's really interesting. So you actually came into the climate space through industrial farming rather than any kind of, I think a lot of Southeast Asian activists, they have experienced a lot of disasters or climate impacts, which brings them. But for you, it was more the farming side of things and food security, would you say or?

00:02:29

Speaker 3

Yeah. I've been very fortunate over I, I hadn't experienced much climate disasters because I usually live in the more urban areas and which, where they usually have better drainage systems and I think better development planning. And the fact that industrialized farming opened up the gates to me, wanting to learn more about the climate crisis should have been a precursor to why I ended up doing my masters on crop insurance. So here we are.

00:02:53

Speaker 2

That makes sense. And I definitely think that the climate crisis is really all encompassing and it really kind of touches on every single aspect of our lives. So it's also good to have this more interdisciplinary approach to it and approaching it from lots of different angles. But I became aware of your work because you were actually in Glasgow last November as an observer to COP26, the International Climate Conference, as part of the delegation of a Youth Coalition focusing their activism specifically on loss and damage issues, which kind of relate to those disasters that we were talking about. But it could also be other climate impacts that are impossible to adapt to. So could you kind of explain to the listeners what the term loss and damage refers to and why is it important to you? Why did you take up your activism in this group and why was it important for you to represent it at the climate conference last year?

00:03:59

Speaker 3

Loss and damage is technically defined as the negative impact of climate change, not avoided by mitigation and adaptation. And in some ways, loss and damage is blatant proof of climate change, which helps to drive the conversation on the climate crisis. It especially helps affected countries and communities to demand change and assistance from the Global North. This is not to say that the Global North must not have loss and damage or does not experience, it’s just that it is not as extensive as the Global South. And through loss and damage we have seen community resilience that serves as lessons and inspiration on how to act post-disaster and that not all hope is lost. And loss and damage can mean economic and non-economic losses. Economic losses like loss of property, income and infrastructure are easy to quantify, unlike non-economic losses, such as loss of life, health, biodiversity and nature. And in my opinion, non-economic losses are not as prominent as economic losses because it is difficult to quantify. Even if it was quantified, it would be under-valued because that kind of loss will be felt for generations, and the true loss of loss and damage is the loss of beauty in nature. This loss will be felt for generations, and any semblance of nature's beauty would only be found in stories, in art. And as proven throughout history, beauty inspires not only imagination, but hope. And once that is going, what are we left with?

00:05:20

Speaker 2

I think you make a really good point about the loss of beauty in nature, especially the way that we know it now. And I think it's really connected to the idea of climate grief, just grieving for the things that we have already lost because of the environmental and climate changes and the things that we know that we are about to lose. And I think that's something that I personally feel quite a lot of times, especially when spending time in nature, just taking in, really appreciating the things around me, but also grieving for them. Do you have similar experiences in your life?

00:06:03

Speaker 3

When I was young, we go back home to my mother's village, visiting some relatives outside the urban areas, and at night you can hear cricket, the sound of nature in sleep. And when I got older, when I was going to university in a different state, it was also kind of an isolated place. It was more of the college town, and it was just really, really quiet at night. And in some cases, sometimes when it's too quiet, I found that I got restless because I kind of got used to hearing the cars passing by when I sleep at night, so it's kind of mindboggling. It's like thing you think about, it's like, I can sleep to the sound of cars, but I can't fall asleep beside me.

00:06:38

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's just quite – because we are both relatively young and still we can already experience in our own personal memories, the changes that are happening around us and that’s quite drastic. I also really like the fact that you made the separation in your definition of loss and damage between the economic and non-economic losses. And I suppose studying crop insurance, that has some kind of connection to the economic losses that might come with climate change? Is that right?

00:07:13

Speaker 3

Yeah, you're right. Because insurance is like, in the end, what are you protecting? What are you insuring? And in the case of crop insurance, the easiest thing is like if you want to protect farmers, we’re protecting them from loss of income. And our justification would be that if they have some compensation to their loss of harvest at least they're not without any income for the next season. At least they can do something with that money, even if it's to maybe restart their harvest in a different kind of crop or even just to sustain your family for a bit, it still counts for something.

00:07:44

Speaker 2

Yeah. And I suppose the question of crop insurance, it's usually within a national context. It's a national insurance provider.

00:07:54

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's easier to study at a national level doing your thesis because in your research, it's more of like an ideal context. So what does an ideal national crop insurance program look like and what would make it successful? So my research I'm doing on what are the challenges in implementation of a National Crop Insurance program, and that itself is challenging.

00:08:16

Speaker 2

I can definitely imagine. The reason why I asked was just because I think loss and damage as this technical term in the climate space refers more to the international dimension and the idea that compensation should be given for losses and damages, especially from the Global North to the Global South. And this question, I think, did feature on the agenda of the last COP26, where you were present, perhaps more prominently than in any of the previous years of the conferences. However, the result of the negotiations has been deemed disappointing by civil society representatives. So I was wondering, how was it for you following all of this in person firsthand over there? What kind of emotions did you go through during the process and what did you leave Glasgow feeling like?

00:09:16

Speaker 3

It was my first COP, so it was understandably overwhelming and educational. Because I was tracking loss and damage throughout COP, I found the conversations around it to be underwhelming, mostly because it did not receive the same thought as topics like adaptation and finance, which are important topics. But loss and damage is important too, and should not be a footnote in the discussion. Even though the loss and damage was added to the COP agenda for the first time, it was grouped with adaptation. And with respect to the extensiveness of the agenda, loss and damage should be a standalone topic, especially for affected countries and communities to have more say on the kinds of assistance they need. And I am glad that loss and damage was added to the agenda in COP26. And though there are ways to go in terms of actually addressing loss and damage and assisting in compensating affected communities and countries, I am hopeful because of the youths I met at COP26 and the few conversations where loss and damage was discussed and to build momentum and to ensure that loss and damage will be a stand alone theme at future crops instead of being grouped with adaptation. There needs to be an awareness in the public and work with government officials.

00:10:24

Speaker 2

I'm glad you mentioned the youth that you met at COP26 because we had some conversations and you've kind of mentioned that your experience at COP26 and also at the Malaysian Local Conference of Youth really underlined to you the importance of Southeast Asian youth representation in climate spaces. So what do you think Southeast Asian youth advocates can bring to the conversation that is otherwise lacking? Where is the Southeast Asian specialty or flare that's missing otherwise?

00:11:00

Speaker 3

Well, Asia is very large and it is not a monolith. So Southeast Asia experiences its own kind of crisis that is compounded by population. So economics and politics. And at COP, the Southeast Asian voices were drowned out by larger and more influential countries in Asia because Southeast Asian countries were advocating individually. And most of the time this would dictate the outcome of discussions, which would not entirely be in the best interest of the country, which is why I believe that Southeast Asian countries have more influence together rather than individually. And this region is vulnerable to multiple climate risk, especially floods and typhoons, due to its archipelagic geography and being surrounded by water. And with that vulnerability, the Southeast Asia countries have displayed immense resilience in how it has mitigated and adapted to the climate crisis. Increased collaboration between the Southeast Asian countries and between the Global South in general would increase the flow of information and enhance innovation that would benefit us all.

00:11:58

Speaker 2

Really interesting. So when you were talking, the first thing that I really thought of was the ASEAN, Association for Southeast Asian Nations, and I think traditionally, climate change hasn't really been on the agenda of ASEAN, even at the governmental collaborative level. But slowly it's becoming a thing. But when you're talking about more collaboration between Southeast Asian countries and climate advocacy in the youth level, would you wish for more ASEAN led collaboration, or how do you think we could further this co-working between Southeast Asian young people?

00:12:43

Speaker 3

I would love to have more collaboration between Southeast Asian youth, and I think the first step would definitely be awareness and education. We definitely have to learn from each other because like I said, Southeast Asia is not a monolith. Malaysian history is very different from even Indonesian history. It's very different from Vietnamese history. And even our forms of government is very different. Malaysia is very multicultural and it's a multi-faith country. Whereas like countries like Vietnam and even Thailand, it's only one race. So how it functions and I think even because it will inform, how climate advocates also see and understand the issues? So like the first step would definitely be starting the conversation, learning from each other, and then trying to find a middle ground where we can grow from.

00:13:27

Speaker 2

Definitely are not well-versed in Southeast Asia, it can be easy to forget how different the countries really are. And even though in Vietnam, we do actually have a lot of different ethnic minorities but it's not to the same extent as, say, in Singapore or Malaysia. So those are the societal differences that I can imagine are seen also in the way climate change is approached. And also, as we know, the vulnerability of people to climate change impacts is also affected by their social status and their class and all of those different things that need to be considered. Just to keep with the youth climate advocacy theme, I was thinking that one of the most famous youth activists is Sweden's Greta Thunberg, who has inspired school strikes globally and the Fridays for Future Movement who strike for climate action every Friday around the world. But I was wondering, how does being a climate advocate in Malaysia, do you think, differ from youth activism here in the Nordic countries? Is it different or is it the same? Are you, I'm guessing you're working for the same objectives, but are your audiences different, are your methods different? Can you expand on that?

00:14:58

Speaker 3

I can't say I have much experience with climate advocates from Nordic countries, nor do I have any experience working in Nordic countries. But I can say that climate advocacy in Malaysia takes into consideration Malaysia's culture, politics and multi-faith society. And we also have large indigenous communities who maintain their way of life that needs to be respected and protected. So as a result, Malaysian advocacy tends to be collaborative and considerate. Climate advocates learn from one another and in the case of the Malaysian Local Conference of Youth, we built from previous years to ensure continuity and growth and make sure we reach a wide demographic each time.

00:15:36

Speaker 2

Yeah. I like your point about Indigenous peoples as well. I think the youth climate movement has only now in the Nordic countries, for example, started shining light on the plight of the Sami people who are the indigenous population here up in the Lapland regions. And that's something that has definitely been lacking maybe at the very beginning of the movement and now is starting to come forward. So maybe there would be something that they could also learn from you, with Malaysian youth advocates having more of a history and experience bringing up these indigenous voices. Another thing that I was thinking about was that in the Nordic countries and in the Global North countries, a lot of times youth activists target their governments with demands for stronger climate action. Is this also possible in Malaysia, or who is the main target groups for your advocacy, personally?

00:16:38

Speaker 3

The climate crisis is not and should not be a political issue, which is why I prefer to keep my advocacy apolitical and focus on the issue itself. Politics can change at any moment, but the climate crisis looks like it's here to stay, unless actual change happens. Currently, my advocacy focuses more on educating and raising awareness among youth while emphasizing that youth are stakeholders and should have a seat at the table when it comes to negotiations, planning and development of climate policies and initiatives. Ideally, I like to believe advocacy has a knock on effect and would influence all members of society.

00:17:14

Speaker 2

And speaking of your advocacy and how you're trying to reach to youth, you are currently working on a virtual platform for climate action, iklim, which is related to bumii, which you mentioned at the beginning of our talk. And both of these you’ve co-founded with another Malaysian youth climate activist, Aaliyah Hasna. Is that correct?

00:17:37

Speaker 3

Yes.

00:17:38

Speaker 2

Yes. So can you tell us more a bit about this project, what it is?

00:17:45

Speaker 3

Well, me and Aaliyah are both climate advocates. I'm still active in climate advocacy. Our advocacy journey started out at the same time in that we looked up online for environmental NGOs in KL and picked one. It just so happens we interned at the same NGO at the same time where we met, and over the years we learned that every NGO addresses a different aspect to the climate crisis and thus has different projects. So me and Aaliyah went through a series of hits and misses, and we realized that that method can deter people from climate advocacy. So we created iklim and we are still developing the platform and we share more on it when it is ready to launch.

00:18:24

Speaker 2

That's great. But it sounds like you're looking to encourage and inspire more people, especially young people, towards climate advocacy with your project and platform?

00:18:35

Speaker 3

Yes, we are. I think as climate advocates, we always wonder whether or not what we do has an impact. And because I think we went through a lot of trials and errors. So because we’ve been through it, we want to sort of make it easier for other climate advocates as well, to make it easier, to sort of lessen the barrier to entry. Because even though being an advocate is mostly like volunteer work, there's still barriers to entry even in that space.

00:18:59

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's very true. I think I've experienced that myself as well. Just things that might discourage me from continuing in the climate work. And given how big the problem is, we really need as many hands on deck as possible. So it's really great that you're working on something that would really help people and make it easier for people to do their part if they want to. How does the fact that you are both Malaysian, you and Aaliyah, influence the design and the nature of iklim? Is there something very Malaysian about it?

00:19:37

Speaker 3

Well, it was important for us that we incorporated a bit of home in our work as to honour where we come from and where we started. And it is also worth noting the emphasis of local action. And that kind of action starts wherever you are.

00:19:51

Speaker 2

And iklim, is it a Malay word?

00:19:55

Speaker 3

Yeah, iklim means climate.

00:19:57

Speaker 2

Oh, okay. I should have maybe guessed that.

00:20:02

Speaker 3

We thought like. Well, like I said, we wanted to sort of put our own local touch on it. And since we're both Malaysians, why not use our local language?

00:20:11

Speaker 2

Yes, that's a beautiful thought and I think it makes perfect sense. Finally, since we are talking about the Malaysian context and you have worked a lot on loss and damage, I know that Malaysia was hit really badly by floods last year, last December. And in some parts the government response to these disasters was criticised as slow and inadequate. And of course increased heavy precipitation is one of the predicted effects of climate change. So you could see this flooding, which was described as a once in a century disaster, as a result of climate change. So I was really wondering if you saw this flooding as a very concrete example of loss and damage in Malaysia, or what kind of thoughts did it bring to you given your work in loss than damage, but also other climate advocacy?

00:21:16

Speaker 3

It is one of the many examples of loss and damage in Malaysia and definitely the most obvious one right now. It is frustrating and heartbreaking because it shows the gaps in our pre and post disaster response, especially since we experienced one of our most devastating floods back in 2014 in the northern and eastern parts of Malaysia. The estimated cost of damages from that flood amounted to around 1 billion ringgit or equivalent to 300 million USD. And the flood left contaminated water, rubbish, carcasses, which led to a public health crisis. And there was a rise in incidences of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that affects both humans and animals, which brought to attention the response of the healthcare system during extreme climatic events. The floods, both the current one and the one back in 2014 are textbook loss and damage because it is direct and immediate.

00:22:10

Speaker 2

Wow. I didn't know that it had so many long term consequences as well though I could have guessed because that tends to be the case usually with disasters. Because loss and damage is, as we've already discussed, often mentioned in the context of payments from the Global North, or from the previously polluting countries, those who have emitted the most greenhouse gases in the past, to countries who are actually then suffering from the consequences of climate change. Do you think, for example, in this very particular case, having some sort of compensationary payment, would that have helped in any way?

00:22:58

Speaker 3

It would be a start. And because I think at the end, the easiest thing to quantify loss and damage would be in terms of cost. And it will help in rebuilding what has been lost or what has been damaged. But I think we should also caution ourselves to not be dependent on external funding and knowing why we asked for that funding is also very important because there also should be a sense of agency and independence from affected countries and communities. Because while we need external help, we should also learn to build our own capacities, so strengthen our own resilience at home.

00:23:34

Speaker 2

Yeah. I'm really glad to hear that you're working on something very grassroots at local level, encouraging people to get into climate action themselves. But then you have all this, even governmental and international level experience to feed into it, because as you say, it's not one or the other. It has to really come from all different angles and all different directions. So I'm really optimistic about your and Aaliyah’s project because I think you have the good basis and a very solid background experience to design it into a very successful one. I'm really excited to see it launch when it does, and I'm sure the listeners are too. So to finish off, could you tell us how we can keep up with your work and get in touch if someone's interested in learning more about your project?

00:24:35

Speaker 3

You may visit bumii's website to learn more about what we do, and we will soon announce the launch of iklim. And we can't wait to bring you along the journey with us.

00:24:44

Speaker 2

Okay. So you can send me the website links and I'll add them to the episode description so people can find you through there. That sounds great. Thank you so much, Farhana, for coming on. And it was a really, really good discussion.

00:25:02

Speaker 3

Thank you for having me. And it was really nice talking to you, too.

00:25:06

Speaker 2

My name is Quynh Le Vo, and my guest today was Farhana Shukor, a Malaysian climate advocate. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast, showcasing Nordic collaboration and studying Asia.

00:25:20

Speaker 1

You have been listening to the Nordic Asia podcast