KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 20): The government is not in favour of calls to increase the electricity tariff as part of a plan to drive the energy efficiency agenda, says Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin.

She said the suggestion to increase the tariff so that people use less electricity thus increase energy efficiency is not applicable.

"Every time I meet with energy industry players, they always came out with the suggestion to increase the tariff or make it cost reflective... But there is a time when you should see from government’s point of view where not many can afford to meet their end needs.

"So it does not really work when you make the electricity tariff cost reflective, while you may benefit some, you are also actually causing  a lot of difficulties to people at the bottom of the pyramid.

"I am not saying there  would not be any increase because that depends on the global fossil fuel price and we are highly reliant on fossil fuel, but we will not deprive the people just because we want to drive the green agenda," she said during the Energy Efficiency in Malaysia Town Hall session here today.

Later at the press conference, asked whether the government will introduce a carbon tax to control carbon emissions and announce it in Budget 2019, Yeo replied in the negative.

"No, it is not in the pipeline of my ministry and actually there is a lot more we can do on climate change, like changing the the electricity generation mix to renewable energy where by 2030 we will have carbon intensity reduction of 49%," she said.

During the event, Yeo also launched the National Building Energy Intensity Labelling for Government Buildings, a programme which aims to optimise energy consumption levels in government buildings in the country and reduce the utility bill of the government.

"This label affixed to the buildings describes and shares information about the energy consumption of the buildings, the label includes star rating, with one being the most inefficient and five stars being very efficient,"  she said.

She said the programme will be implementedin  a few phases where the first phase tol be implemented by the end of this year involving 50 buildings of ministries.