Doing more about climate change

This primer is the 10th instalment of a 12-part series in the Opinion pages, in the lead-up to The Straits Times-Ministry of Education National Current Affairs Quiz.
Grace Chua Straits Times 27 Jul 12;

Should Singapore do more about climate change?

CLIMATE change, which threatens to cause rising temperatures, intense storms and rising sea levels, is a global issue that Singapore can't escape.

So should the island state do more about climate change? The answer: It depends.

Clearly, it is vulnerable to rising oceans and drastic changes in rainfall that result when excess carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere. But it is also a small country with a relatively small absolute carbon footprint - it produces just 0.2 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases that cause warming.

Given that China produces a whopping 29 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and the United States produces 16 per cent, Singapore's tiny contribution might cause some to think that nothing the Republic does will make even a dent in the global picture of climate change.

Yet the Republic has pledged to cut its emissions by 16 per cent from the business-as-usual scenario by 2020 if the world reaches an agreement on climate change, and from 7 per cent to 11 per cent if there is no global agreement.

Without measures to slash emissions, Singapore's emissions in 2020 are projected to reach 77.2 million tonnes. That is the amount the entire world currently emits in a single day.

Its emissions targets may seem smaller than other nations' - for example, Germany has a domestic programme that aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.

But other countries have a greater capacity to switch their energy sources from coal or fuel oil to natural gas or renewable energy. Singapore's choices are more limited.

Singapore began switching its fuel mix more than a decade ago. In 2000, 19 per cent of its power came from natural gas. By 2010, it was 78.7 per cent.

But barring a technological miracle, it has little space for sprawling rooftop solar panels or wind turbines.

That does not mean it is fiddling while the world burns.

A national climate change strategy report published last month outlined a number of steps Singapore has taken in recent years. For one thing, it is promoting energy efficiency. An Energy Conservation Act that takes effect next year mandates that large consumers of energy, such as industries, appoint energy managers and submit improvement plans.

Industries contributed 54 per cent of Singapore's carbon emissions in 2005, and are projected to contribute 60.3 per cent in 2020 in a business-as-usual scenario.

Singapore's emissions are expected to grow at 4.3 per cent a year till 2020. Much of its economic growth until that period comes from relatively high-emitting industries such as petroleum refining and chemicals. And power generation can no longer easily switch from fuel oil to natural gas as it had in years past.

In the long term, Singapore will have to decide what it wants its economy to be built on. Should it reconsider its industry mix to shift towards less energy-intensive industries?

At the same time, it must do this without outsourcing or shunting that same work to countries that might be less energy efficient, which might reduce Singapore's emissions but result in higher overall global emissions.

And it must balance emissions control with other needs such as energy security, which means using other forms of energy with less severe impact on the environment.

Meanwhile, Singapore is taking other steps to stem its carbon emissions. Transport in 2005 produced 19 per cent of the country's emissions. But new rail lines and more trains by 2016 may convert some motorists to public transport with lower emissions. And new buildings are subject to the Green Mark certification scheme, which imposes minimum standards on energy and water efficiency.

Yet for all its concrete policies, Singapore should not neglect the intangible aspects of climate change action.

In international negotiations, some small nations feel they have more standing to bargain with high-emitting countries if they have already taken the clean lead. For instance, the Maldives and Samoa, both small island states at risk from sea-level rises, have pledged to go carbon-neutral - having its emissions be equal to the amount it takes in or offsets - by cutting fossil fuel consumption and installing more renewable power. Singapore may opt to adopt such a negotiating stance.

Developing countries and cities look to Singapore as an example of a sustainable city. But in fact, if everyone in the world consumed at the rate the average Singaporean does, 3.5 earths would be needed to generate the resources for such a level of consumption, according to a World Wide Fund for Nature report last month. Much of what is consumed is not produced here, so that carbon emissions are outsourced to other countries.

So there is room to change people's mindsets so that every individual feels that he can contribute more to stemming climate change - say, by consuming or wasting less.

Just as psychological defence is one of Singapore's five pillars of total defence, Singapore could foster its people's psychological engagement with this global challenge.

Background story

Developing countries and cities look to Singapore as an example of a sustainable city. But in fact, if everyone in the world consumed at the rate the average Singaporean does, 3.5 earths would be needed to generate the resources for such a level of consumption, according to a World Wide Fund for Nature report last month.

Global problem, bleak outlook
Straits Times 27 Jul 12;

If climate change is such a pressing global problem, why is it so hard to deal with?

AT THE first Rio Earth Summit, held in Brazil in 1992, leaders from all over the world produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the landmark agreement to stabilise the production of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to prevent runaway, man-made climate change.

The treaty sowed the seeds of the Kyoto Protocol, which outlines limits and targets for greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide trap the sun's heat in the atmosphere, causing it to warm up. They result both naturally and from human activities, but man-made sources such as burning fossil fuels are putting too much of these into the atmosphere.

But since then, progress on climate change has been incremental.

In part, that's because the nations of the world still disagree on a critical issue: Who does what and who pays?

Under the Kyoto Protocol, wealthy countries were to help less-developed ones with technology and funding to pay for emission reductions.

At the latest climate change meeting in Durban last year, participants agreed to set up a Green Climate Fund to channel US$100 billion (S$125 billion) towards poorer countries, but plans for a sustainable income stream have not yet been formed.

Developing countries such as China and India argue that their per capita emissions are much lower than those of developed countries' and therefore they should get to catch up economically before they start cutting back.

But that argument will not hold for much longer: an International Energy Agency analysis last year found that China's per capita emissions will outstrip the European Union's in the next four years.

Developing nations also say that even as they try to help themselves, it is developed nations like those in Europe which should bear responsibility for the climate change crisis today, because the latter grew their economies by emitting greenhouse gases.

But the world's balance of economic power has shifted in the years since 1992.

Today, China's total emissions far outstrip those of any European economy. Europe's economies, mired in debt, are less able to finance efforts by developing countries.

What is more, not all countries have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol.

Last year, Canada - an energy producer that is now exploiting its wealth of fossil fuels in the form of tar sands - withdrew from it.

That underscores yet another challenge.

Even as many countries suffer the ill effects of climate change, such as drought and loss of agricultural productivity, some countries will benefit directly from climate change, if their growing season lengthens with warmer weather.

Others, such as Canada, will benefit from simply ignoring it.

GRACE CHUA