ABSTRACT
The significant economic loss brought about by climate change undermines infrastructure and development efforts, consequently impacting livelihoods. As Malaysia transitions towards a low-carbon economy, mitigating and adapting to climate change has become part of national policy. As a contemporary and dynamic instrument for Islamic social finance, cash waqf can be harnessed to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation endeavours. This chapter explores the feasibility of cash waqf towards enhancing climate change mitigation and adaptation under Malaysian policy and law. The two concepts are explained together with the policies and legal framework supporting them. Through legal doctrinal methodology and policy analysis, primary and secondary sources of the law and Malaysian government policies are analysed to determine the feasibility of raising funds through cash waqf endeavours. Initial findings are that institutional capacity building and coordination, the designing of innovative cash waqf products as well as a national strategy integrating waqf with climate change are required to harness the potentials of cash waqf towards enhancing climate change mitigation and adaptation in Malaysia. Challenges include the need to create awareness amongst local waqf institutions on the feasibility of such projects and proposals and achieving a bigger scale of funding through designing innovative cash waqf products to attract investments.
