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Climate change is causing sea-level rise, intense and frequent storm surge flooding, and significant shoreline erosion in Malaysian coastal areas. Consequently, coastal properties, infrastructure, and livelihoods are threatened. It has become apparent that adaptation at the household and community level is necessary to offset the adverse impacts of coastal hazards. The community needs to be made aware of the risks, acquire knowledge about adaptation options, and be empowered to take their own actions. Public perception and preference are therefore crucial for design and implementation of effective planning for climate change. Thus, this study assesses households' perception, adaptation measures and empirically estimates willingness to pay and preference for planned adaptation measures to guide policy instruments through public engagement. In Malaysia, ten highly vulnerable coastal areas in the Selangor coast were surveyed at the household level (n = 1016) through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Regarding households’ perception and adaptation methods, most of the households in the highly exposed areas perceived less risk of inundation and sea-level rise threat and adopted less proactive adaptation and limited risk reduction behaviours during the extreme event. The study found that 66.9% of households were willing to pay for planned adaptation measures despite the limited income capabilities and in favour of moderate adaptation (23.9%). The binomial and ordinal regression results indicated that the probability of willingness to pay for planned adaptation measures significantly increases with age, prior exposure to coastal hazards, awareness, risk perception, community participation, being affected by property damage and loss of income due to extreme events. With increased monthly household income and access to telecommunication services, households will probably pay higher for better adaptation measures. A significant amount of perceived yearly adaptation benefits in the coastal districts revealed the economic value of extensive (22,969.50 MYR/5462.43 USD), moderate (21,853.20 MYR/5196.96 USD) and minimal adaptation measures (8022.90 MYR/1907.94 USD) that can be utilised to incentivise coastal adaptation plans. The findings suggest policies to incorporate social values to reduce vulnerability, enhance community resilience, and contribute to the knowledge gap of adaptation research in the coastal areas.

The objective of this paper is to examine the factors affecting the waste collection to poverty reduction among the waste workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Particular interest is on the question whether the contribution of some determinants actively plays a role in reducing the possibility of being poor. This issue is particularly significant since it has been argued in various relevant literatures. There is potential for the waste picking sector to play an important role in alleviating poverty of the waste workers. This research provides the empirical evidence for answering this question by estimating a logistic regression model using primary data gathered within Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Research results showed that the education of the respondent, number of the dependent in family, training, and collection of recyclable items were significant negative predictors at 5% level of significance. Framing policy to develop skilled waste workers could be an effective strategy towards implementing a sustainable waste management system in Bangladesh. The findings of this study imply that promoting organised and systematic waste management activities, such as intensifying urban industrialisation with formal sector, will have a positive impact on efforts to reduce poverty.

This article presents the current trends of energy consumption and CO2emission as well as their relationship for the five largest Asian economies i.e., People's Republic of China (China), Japan, India, Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Indonesia using the time series data from 1991 to 2014. The total energy consumption has increased by 3.62 times from 1991 to 2014 in China where India, Korea and Indonesia have faced more than double of their energy consumption during that time. However, total CO2emission in China, India, Korea and Indonesia was increased by 3.5, 2.81, 2.25 and 3.14 times respectively from 1991 to 2014. All the countries except Japan are facing increasing trends of energy consumption and CO2emission while positive and significant relationship have found between them for all the countries. Thus, the implementation of current policies and emission reduction target of these five countries are presented in this paper.

This study analyzes three major components of geotourism market in ASEAN: demand side, supply side and related agencies. It reveals potential competitive advantages for Malaysia such as its large market for geotourism promotion because of higher tourist arrival rate and increasing demand trend for nature-based tourism, its supply side with enormous possibilities due to the abundance of geoheritages specially, Langkawi Global Geopark – the first UNESCO geopark in Southeast Asia, established tourism infrastructures, and price competitiveness that makes Malaysia very affordable destination. The findings suggest that Malaysia should strategies geotourism promotion taking into account these advantages and further prioritize its tourism sector.

Malaysia has seen a high rate of economic growth in the past couple of decades, hand in hand with an ever increasing size of population. Consequently, the issue of sustainable waste management has become an important priority for policymakers and other stakeholders of the society. Although the respective local administrations are responsible for collection and disposal of household and industrial wastes, privatisation of the entire process has been heavily promoted and pursued by the federal government of the country. A significant number of waste dealers - both formal and informal - are currently involved in the field level. Through analysing the inputs acquired from semi-structured interviews with these waste dealers operating at Kuala Langat and Sepang districts in Selangor state, it was found that inconsistency in policy formation by local authorities on waste disposal regulations and as well bureaucracy in business registration for waste dealers has indirectly encouraged illegal dumping of waste in the districts. However, against all odds the districts have potentials for viable recycling business.

The purpose of this study is to find whether there is any significant impact, be it short run or long run, of financial development (FD) on economic growth from nine island economies. Despite the vast researches on the FD and economic growth nexus, little has been known from the perspective of island economies. Therefore, this study has attempted to analyse the dynamic relationship by incorporating both time series and cross–sectional data from the island economies over the period of 30 years (1980 to 2009). This study employed error correction–based pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) model for analysing dynamic heterogeneous panel data. Results from the PMG estimates demonstrate that financial development has a negative short run impact on economic growth. Whilst in the long run, there is a positive and a homogenous effect of financial development on growth across the island economy.