MM: No pushing back climate change

China and India, as major consumers of energy, must cut emissions, says MM Lee
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 3 Dec 08;

HONG KONG: Singapore is known for its equatorial climate, but yesterday, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew revealed that when indoors in Singapore, he needs warm clothing more often than he does on his trips to Europe.

That is because 'the offices are freezing!', he declared, explaining that the low temperatures are a consequence of central air-conditioning systems in office buildings.

His comment drew laughter from the audience attending his 40-minute dialogue with former United States president Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Asia meeting yesterday afternoon.

Mr Lee was responding to a question from Ms Liao Xiaoyi, president of Global Village, a Beijing-based environmental group, who had asked him why the Singapore Government did not take measures to address the problem of excessive energy consumption caused by the widespread use of air-conditioners.

Ms Liao, who has visited Singapore, said she could not 'understand the ridiculous phenomenon of why every house is so cold'.

In China, she said, the government has ordered that all air-conditioned public rooms must not be set lower than 26 deg C in summer, and no higher than 20 deg C in winter to save energy.

Chinese media reports say air-conditioners account for 30 to 50 per cent of office buildings' power consumption. Some cities such as Shanghai have been known to experience power shortages when the use of air conditioners is high.

Singapore, said Mr Lee, attempts to rein in the use of energy-guzzling air-conditioners by pricing.

'We give everybody a quota for normal consumption, if you go beyond that you pay a surtax on your electricity,' he said but added that the problem was that 'in a growingly affluent society, people say 'never mind I'll pay up'.'

The conflict between economic growth and the desire to protect the environment, how to get the whole world on board when it comes to tackling global warming, as well as finding solutions to the problem of growing scarcity of fossil fuels, took centre stage in Mr Lee's conversation with Mr Clinton.

Among the questions that Mr Clinton posed to MM Lee was one on how the use of renewable energy such as solar power and the dependence on it, could be encouraged at a time when prices for oil and coal have dropped.

The oil age will 'come to an end sooner or later', but alternative energy can never replace carbon fuels, said Mr Lee.

While nuclear fusion looks some years away, 'the only thing that can replace carbon fuels would be nuclear power', said MM Lee, who said he was more pessimistic about energy than water scarcity.

'With the best of intentions, the world must prepare itself for more adaptations than pushing back climate change,' said Mr Lee.

With scientists forecasting that global temperatures could rise by as much as 6 deg C over the coming decades, Mr Lee said the world must aim to keep the increase to the minimum prediction of 2 deg C. But it will not be easy.

'The Europeans have not been able to keep up the limits they placed on the Kyoto Protocol, they have decided now that cap and trade may not be as efficient as a straightforward carbon tax,' he said. 'How do you get a carbon tax right across the board throughout the world, including India and China?'

India and China, he noted, have made no commitments to cut their carbon emissions.

'We have to wait for them to get the message, when the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau begin to recede to dangerous levels and their rivers begin to become seasonal with rain and not throughout the year.

'How long will that be? I don't know but maybe too late. So my conclusion is that we have to do the best we can, and hope that the major consumers of energy, which will be India and China, will come on board soon,' he said.

Meanwhile, there can be simple solutions to saving energy and energy efficiency.

Mr Lee cited the example of his stay at a hotel in Istanbul where he had a 'ghostly' experience with lights installed with motion-sensors that came on when a person was in range, but went off when no one was there.

'Now if we can have that for air-conditioners and so many other things, we could easily save 30, maybe 40 per cent of energy consumed,' he said.

However, energy efficiency will not solve the problem, it just 'delays the ending of the coal and oil age'.

He said: 'At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of stored solar energy over the millennia and people are using it up... it's going to come to an end. So we need to find a solution to this.'