Iceland's leader goes bird-watching on visit here

Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times AsiaOne 15 Nov 15;

Flying from as far as Siberia and Alaska, Arctic birds make the annual sojourn to Singapore during their year-end migratory season.

Yesterday, Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson spied some of the 118 species that make a stopover in Singapore at this time of year when he visited the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

His tour of Sungei Buloh came after his visit to the Centre for Liveable Cities, a local think-tank on urban governance and management.

He also went to oil rig builder Keppel Fels' Yard, and had a meeting with officials of Keppel Offshore and Marine's officials.

Dr Grimsson, whose three-day state visit to Singapore ended yesterday, capped his trip here with a public lecture on clean energy, climate and the future of the Arctic region. He spoke about the global nature of climate change and how Iceland's move towards lowering carbon dioxide emissions cannot be a unique story, but should be a trend adopted by more for the future.

The lecture, given under the Yale-NUS College President's Speaker series, was attended by 300 people, most of who were students and faculty members.

The need for greater global environmental responsibility and a shift towards sustainable energy sources was a recurring theme in the speeches he made during his visit to Singapore.

Dr Grimsson, accompanied by his wife, Ms Dorrit Moussaieff, left for home yesterday evening.