How Singapore can spearhead the world’s fight against climate change
I recently published my second book and first novel, The People From Beyond The Mountains. As it’s an allegory with messages about sustainability and climate change, the creative process of conceiving the characters and plots was only half the work. The other half was a lot of research I had to do into industrialization, agriculture, energy, urbanization, water and so many other topics central to our entire existence on the planet.
As I was doing the research, I was astonished at how front-and-centre my own country, Singapore, is in climate change mitigation efforts. We’ve always been a green oasis and a carbon sink. We’ve always not just matched but exceeded the globally-suggested threshold that at least 33% of a city needs to be green cover. We went from a garden city to a city-in-a-garden. These are all well-known facts.
But in my recent research, I found that the things we are doing now (as in, the past few months and the next few months) are really taking us to the next level. It’s no wonder that climate change is expected to be a big part of the discussion when US Vice President Kamala Harris visits our country in the next few days. Because Singapore is truly at the tip of the spear in climate change mitigation. We’ve earned the right to discuss the issue with the top leaders of the world.
A lot has been said about jobs that will be lost due to the shift to renewable energy. But Singapore’s focus is the exact opposite: the jobs that will be created due to this shift. This is what has always worked for Singapore: pragmatism. We are not tree-hugging activists. We objectively recognize that we are uniquely qualified to lead the world in the most important issue of our times, while creating jobs and prosperity for our people and the region.
Let me count the ways in which Singapore can help save the world:
1) Singapore’s prowess in R&D makes us a hub for renewable energy such as solar and wind. It’s increasingly common to see solar panels dotting the roofs of our houses and office buildings. We recently opened the Tengeh Floating Solar Farm which is one of the world’s biggest floating solar farms. Carbon capture and storage (CCS), the nascent field of extracting carbon from the air and storing (or sequestering) it in the environment, also needs a lot of R&D which Singapore can provide.
2) Electric vehicles is another sector in which we are already making a mark. Our goals of installing 60,000 charging stations by 2030 and transitioning to a fully electric vehicle fleet by 2040 are driving us forward (pun intended). Homegrown firm BlueSG is emerging as a world leader in this space.
3) Industries that are not strictly energy-related but contribute immensely to reducing carbon footprint, such as plant-based protein, are on the rise in Singapore. TiNDLE by Next Gen Foods is a prime example.
4) Our green buildings like the Marina Bay Supertrees, Parkroyal and CapitaGreen are an inspiration to property developers around the world.
5) Urban farming is in vogue here now. It’s still quite niche, but solar panels were niche two years ago and are mainstream now, so expect urban farming to sprout up soon (another pun intended). This will not only reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture but also increase our food security. One of my mentors in advertising, Calvin Soh, is leading the Singapore urban farming revolution with his family while even inventing contraptions to make it easier!
6) Singapore is poised to lead the world in carbon credit exchange through the Climate Impact eXchange (CIX) global carbon exchange and marketplace.
This last point (CIX) needs more explanation because it’s not obvious to everyone what’s a global carbon exchange and marketplace.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say Company X needs another 10 years to achieve zero carbon emissions. During this time, they need a way to offset these 10 years of emissions. Let’s say there’s a Company Y who specializes in sequestering carbon in the environment by regenerating rainforests and mangroves. These negative carbon emissions will earn carbon credits for Company Y. Company X can buy these carbon credits from Company Y. If these carbon credits are equivalent to a thousand tons of CO2, this gives Company X the right to emit a thousand tons of CO2. That way, it’s still zero net carbon emissions, because 1,000 minus 1,000 is zero.
This is, of course, a stop-gap arrangement. The end goal is for Company X to successfully re-engineer all their processes to generate zero CO2. That’s when they will no longer need to purchase carbon credits. But that may take another decade. Till then, they will depend on Company Y to help them offset their carbon emissions.
But who assesses Company Y’s efforts and determines that those efforts should be rewarded with a specific number of carbon credits? That responsibility falls to carbon exchanges like Singapore’s upcoming CIX. This means that one thing is of paramount importance here. The carbon exchanges like CIX need to be reliable, trustworthy and science-based. They need to audit Company Y’s claims and ensure that they really did the things they claim they did, and that these efforts made a difference. If a rainforest was never under any real threat, and Company Y claims to have protected it by doing nothing, an audit will uncover this and they will not be rewarded with carbon credits.
You need a trusted entity to do this. Singapore has earned the trust of the global community through decades of ethical financial and business practices and a world-leading low level of corruption. Singapore can be trusted to audit every carbon credit for its quality and ensure that only activities that have a provable positive impact are rewarded with carbon credits. This makes Singapore uniquely positioned to power the carbon exchange industry.
Whether it’s a well-developed and trusted financial system, or a cutting-edge R&D pedigree, or a highly-educated workforce, these are advantages that take decades to build and cannot be instantly replicated elsewhere.
Singapore is not politically ideological because we’ve seen how political ideology has ruined many nations around the world. What we are, and have always been, is pragmatic. We follow the science, recognize that climate change is a globally pertinent issue, and identify that we have the right skills and circumstances that can help the world mitigate it.
We also stand to create loads of jobs and prosperity while at it. As I said in my earlier book Cultural Engineering, doing well while doing good is the best of all possible worlds.
