There is a part in the climate crisis where we find each other, and our shared sense of belonging to Sabah. We want to move together with you, inviting you to re-imagine the future with us now.
As floodwaters rise and droughts prolong all across the globe, climate scientists have determined a set of future climate projections or scenarios that place us in ever more precarious positions. Our current trajectory, Socioeconomic Pathway 2-4.5 (SSP2-4.5) tells us that we will be entering a world that is +2.5℃ warmer.
How will Sabah transform in a warming climate? Gathering data and sourcing from publicly available research, we’ve unravelled and mapped a vision of Sabah’s future – a drastically changed landscape showing us what we need to know about the effects of climate change on Heat, Food, Livelihoods and the Environment. These climate projections are inviting us to ponder right now on the way ahead.
How it works
In Forever Sabah, we source verifiable and published research from studies conducted by top-tier institutions locally and across the world to produce our climate projections for Sabah. These scenarios are derived from a highly methodical approach.
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Are you noticing how hot it feels these days? As global temperatures rise, many of the worst consequences will be felt in places like Sabah that experience high humidity that prevents our bodies from easily cooling. According to our projections, many parts of Sabah, especially the lowlands, will become so hot that sustained outdoor labour in building and construction during the day will become almost impossible, and time spent outside of air conditioning increasingly uncomfortable.
Rainfall is becoming increasingly unpredictable and we expect this to intensify over time. Changing rainfall patterns in Sabah will cause some areas to have wetter rainy seasons, while the dry seasons become drier. This will increase flood and drought risks, and water availability will become an issue for people and their farms.
Our livelihoods are closely tied to the environment with our agriculture, fisheries and settlements relying on local climate conditions to thrive. As climate change disrupts these environments, food security and standards of living will face greater challenges. Farmers will become an at-risk community as crops and livestock are not immune to extremities of weather. Our maps zoom in on these conditions for paddy, rubber, poultry and more.
We look at changes to Precipitation to Potential Evapotranspiration Ratio (P/PET Ratio), or changes to plant-to-water balance, and predict P/PET Ratio to drop to less than one (<1) in many parts of Sabah between six to 12 months in a single calendar year, dramatically changing the state’s ecosystem and putting many communities at high risk of drought. Plant life will suffer, and our projections also show huge fire risks to forested areas, including protected regions, nature reserves, commercial forests, and ancestral lands. Can lives and livelihoods adapt to these changes?
For Sensemakers
We provide access to a database of maps, images and data produced from landscapes and scenarios, released under Creative Commons licensing to make greater use of our research.
The publicly shared data outlines two emission scenarios – -a low emission scenario and a +2.5°C warming scenario –- covering the periods from 2041 to 2070 and 2071 to 2100.
We share this so you can assess climate change impacts for your own community based on geographical location, making sense of your place and effort in the landscape you are a part of.
For Institutions and Agencies
Our research can support meaningful policy and decision-making on adaptation and mitigation efforts specific to a locale, biodiversity region, community and scenario.
Democratising our data and toolset means that institutions and agencies in Sabah can look up climate change impacts over a more specific or narrower time frame, equipped with a wider field of vision for actionable impact.
For Data Scientists and Researchers
We are able to provide access to the R code that we use to generate our layers and download our data sources, enabling further research on climate change impacts in Sabah, Malaysia or regionally.
Collaboration is the name of the game. We plan for data scientists, researchers and academics to think through climate change allowing purposeful use of code to generate your own layers, climate indices and beyond.