PUTRAJAYA: SUSTAINABILITY and environmental issues caught the headlines globally and in Malaysia since last week.

In New York, as part of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the Climate Action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summits were held.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16, stole the limelight with a rousing speech that put the blame on world leaders for their inaction on climate change.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly, the former Malaysian Prime Minister had called for the world to prepare for climate change instead of war.

Domestically, the haze was yet another reminder that environmental preservation is crucial to our livelihoods.

At one point, Kuching was declared the most polluted city in the world based on the World's AirPollution Quality Index.

In assessingthe world's progress towards sustainable development, the UN's 2019 SDGs reportconcluded that while there has been much progress on ending extreme poverty, boosting healthand improving access to electricity, "the natural environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate".

It highlighted that sea levels continue to rise, climate-related and geophysical disasters are becoming more frequent, claiming an estimated 1.3 million lives between1998 and 2017, and one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction.

It demonstrated that despite the ramping up of rhetoric for sustainability, the environment is lagging behind as a development priority.

In Malaysia, while the 2020 Budget should be lauded for emphasising the importance of environmental protection, as a whole, the environmental sector made up only 0.7 per cent of the budget.

This ranks environment around 12 in terms of priority, below education, health, transportation and housing.

As a comparison, the average European Union expenditure on the environment is 1.6 per cent of government spending, with the Netherlands spending 3.2 per cent of its budget on environmental protection.

As we reach the end of the Vision 2020 timeline and start a new era through the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030, there is a critical need to articulate a model that can integrate environment anddevelopment in Malaysia's own mould.

A review of the Vision showed that environment is included it.

The guiding principles includes "Sovereignty and Sustainability" as one ofits principles and oneof the "Key Economic Growth Activities" is on green economy.

Sustainability is also identified as one of seven "enablers" to accelerate implementation of thevision.

It remains unclear, however, how environment can be integrated as a core development agenda as there is a risk that it continues to be implemented separately, rather than across all sectors of development.

To elevate environment as a development priority, policies need to adopt approaches that establishes environmental interactions with other development goals.

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO ESTABLISH A POLICY GUIDELINE FOR THE RELEVANT AUTHORITIES ON HOW THE ABOVE ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS COULD BE CURBED. (20marks)