On 1 October 2022, the EU Delegation to Malaysia (EUD) unveiled its latest documentary ‘Is Climate Change Real?’ to raise public awareness around the impacts of climate change and on how the EU and Malaysia working together to support local communities, such as the project to preserve the environment in Sabah.

Third of the EUD series ‘Learn to Live Again: Steps Towards Sustainability’ campaign, the documentary has since been featured in leading Malaysian media outlets Sinar Daily, Astro Awani and News Straits Times in their coverage of EU Climate Diplomacy Week. Observed annually around the world, the week is an EU effort to amplify good practices, forge new partnerships, and incite bold action against climate change.

The documentary drives home the point that climate change impacts are stark and escalating at an alarming speed. The world is consistently seeing temperatures at already 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, warns Ms Datin Seri Sunita Rajakumar, Chairperson of Climate Governance Malaysia. ‘There is a more than 50% probability of 1.5 degree warming in the next few years, and because of this we’ve already seen extreme weather events happening.’

The accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere is explained as the scientific cause of global warming, brought about and intensified by human activity such as deforestation and overfishing.

Dr Helena Varkky, Associate Professor in the Department of International and Strategic Studies at Universiti Malaya, says that the situation will continue to worsen as warning signs spread much faster than previously forecast. Rising sea levels, floods, droughts and heat waves are increasingly causing destruction to Malaysia’s agriculture and the livelihoods of all who rely on it.

‘We are living in a time where we are causing all these changes’, says Dr Varkky. ‘Our children will come into this world and have to live with the consequences. The least we can do as responsible parents and adults is to try to minimise the unnecessary burden on them.’

H.E. Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU Commissioner for the Environment, Fisheries and Ocean, also appears during a mission to Malaysia, on which he stressed the importance of recognising local communities to act as ‘a guardian of their own territories’ as they work to address climate change.