Clear and present challenges
Malcolm Wicks, Straits Times 8 Nov 08;
IN 100 years' time, when historians look back at the 21st century, they will try to summarise the great complexity of our times by picking a handful of dominant themes.
Even today, we can make a fairly safe guess that climate and energy security will feature strongly in that analysis.
They are, without doubt, two major historical challenges for mankind.
We can see that reflected in the media every day. The competition for scarce fossil fuel resources is becoming ever greater as demand increases. The technical challenge and the cost involved in extraction and exploration are rising; and, of course, we have seen exceptional price volatility this year.
Climate change is also already a real and measurable phenomenon, and each new piece of evidence makes the scientific consensus even stronger.
To quote American President-elect Barack Obama: 'Climate change is real. It is something we have to deal with now, not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now...we ignore it at our own peril.'
The result is that we know that in order to achieve long-term sustainability, our future energy supply must be low-carbon: a diverse mix of technologies, including a rapid expansion of renewables.
Both Singapore and Britain have a proven track record of global leadership in the fields of climate change and renewable energy technologies.
As the British Prime Minister's Special Representative for International Energy Issues, I want to see our two countries work even more closely in tackling some of our generation's greatest challenges.
Scientifically, there are great opportunities to join our technological know-how in developing commercially competitive renewable energy sources. Like Singapore, Britain continues to increase its investment in public science - which has more than doubled in real terms since 1997, and will stand at just under $10 billion annually by 2010.
Like Singapore, we recognise the importance of cutting across traditional boundaries - with some £680 million (S$1.6 billion) for cross-disciplinary research in energy and environmental change.
The near market opportunities for our collaboration lie in areas such as bio-energy, carbon capture and storage, and sea and solar power.
On Wednesday, I opened a high-level scientific workshop focusing on how to make full use of renewable small-scale energy generation. This built upon the close Britain-Singapore partnership in science, which has seen cooperation in a variety of areas including drug discovery, aerospace and infectious diseases.
I am greatly impressed by Singapore's success in building an R&D-based knowledge economy, and the Government's long-term vision for investing in infrastructure such as the Biopolis and Fusionopolis research hubs.
One recent example of the productive Britain-Singapore relationship is the Nanyang Technological University-Rolls Royce Fuel Cell Systems collaboration. The combination of NTU's academic and manufacturing excellence with Rolls Royce's R&D and engineering expertise is a recipe for success for an important new clean energy source.
I was also pleased earlier this week to witness a new cooperation agreement between Singaporean company IUT Global and British-based Refgas, which will work together to turn reclaimed food and inorganic waste in Singapore into power.
These prove that exciting progress is being made by those willing to take risks and to be creative. There are huge opportunities in the energy and carbon sectors for businesses with the imagination and innovation to make the most of them.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore has described climate change as a 'true planetary emergency' - a very apt description.
Even as we work to decarbonise our economies, we must never forget the urgency or scale of the challenge. The window of opportunity to prevent dangerous climate change is closing rapidly.
We have no choice but to act now, and the prize for those who play a part in this great global revolution looks set, quite rightly, to be very substantial indeed.
Chances for collaboration
Straits Times 8 Nov 08;
THE UK-Singapore Partners in Science initiative was started in 2004 to celebrate the excellence of UK Science and highlight collaborative opportunities with Singapore.
The campaign was launched by Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and is run by the British High Commission in Singapore.
It was so successful that in July 2005, then British prime minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong decided to convert the campaign into a long-term strategic programme.
Since then, more than 30 workshops have been held across a range of areas in science and innovation, including aquaculture, stem cell research and organic chemistry.
Promising researchers in Singapore have benefited from travel grants allowing them to go to Britain for collaborations. These have led to other funding awards.
For example, work on computer simulation models by Dr Ian McLoughlin of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) together with the University of Birmingham, partly funded by the British Council, led to a grant of more than $180,000.
The grant from the Singapore National Medical Research Council is to be used over two years for research on bionic voice technology.
Following their academic exchange, Dr Liu Changqing from Loughborough University and NTU's Dr Chen Zhong also won a research award of more than $100,000 from the British Council in Britain to invest in a project connecting integrated circuits to electronic systems.
Climate change is one key area of research leading to collaborations, such as the one between NTU's Associate Professor Chen Yan and Oxford University's Dr You Zhong on solar panel research.
The British High Commission said that one of its important tasks here is to promote a low-carbon, high-growth economy in Singapore and the region.
SHOBANA KESAVA
