Committee of Supply Debate 2010: Environmental Policies under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources

Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, gave their speeches during the Committee of Supply Debate under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) yesterday. The speeches address various environmental policies, including:

• Sustainable Development – Overall Approach to Resource Efficiency and Mitigating Climate Change
• Improving Energy Efficiency
• Singapore’s Vulnerability to Climate Change
• Managing Our Water Resources
• Recycling and Waste Minimisation
• Building Up R&D and Manpower Capabilities in Clean Environment and Water Sectors
• Dengue
• Sustaining Public Cleanliness
• Licensing Elderly Tissue Paper Peddlers
• Noise
• Enhancements to Food Hygiene Regime
• ABC Waters Programme

Here are some key points that they raised: Read more

Reframing the Climate Change Narrative

March 4, 2010
12:15 pm	to	1:30 pm

Venue: Seminar Room 3-1, Level 3, Manasseh Meyer, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, 469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259772

Speaker: Prof Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development Senior Research Professor, Johns Hopkins University

and

Um Woochong, Deputy Director General, Regional and Sustainable Development Department Asian Development Bank

Synopsis: Thus far, international negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have focused on emission reductions, the “targets and timetables” for doing so, monitoring and compliance regimes, and incentives in the form of finance and carbon markets. The failure of the recent UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009 has highlighted the limitations of this approach. Read more

Climate Change – An Emerging Security Threat

November 23, 2009
12:40 pm	to	1:30 pm

Speaker: Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, Climate and Energy Security Envoy, British Government

Venue: Seminar Room 3-1, Level 3, Manasseh Meyer, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, 469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259772

Synopsis: Internationally, there is growing interest in non-traditional threats to security. Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti is the British Government’s envoy for climate and energy security. He will examine how climate change can act as a ‘threat multiplier’ that exacerbates existing tensions and has consequences for national and international security. He will outline how countries need to ensure that their security strategies address the impact of climate change on stability. He will also emphasise the urgency of the global transition to a low carbon economy, which will limit the threat and explore possible solutions such as areas where militaries can collaborate. The session will also consider how these factors may come into play in South East Asia.

Details and registration at the LKYSPP website.

REDD, REDD+, or REDD++: Multiple Perspectives on Climate Change Mitigation in the Forestry Sector

November 17, 2009
2:30 pm	to	4:00 pm

Speaker: Dr David Neidel, Asia Training Program Coordinator for the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI), Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

About the Seminar:

Deforestation and forest degradation contribute approximately 20% of the annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is now widely recognized as the major driving force behind global climate change. To help address this problem, afforestation/reforestation projects, which sequester carbon from the atmosphere, were included within the Clean Development Mechanism. Concerns about a complementary and potentially more effective approach, known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), however, have kept it relegated to the Voluntary Carbon Market. While REDD now appears poised for inclusion in both international and national regulatory markets, debates continue to swirl around a number of issues including the exact scope of the approach (RED, REDD, REDD +, or REALU), the nature of the financing mechanism, and a series of methodological issues including additionality, permanence, and leakage.

This seminar is intended to provide an overview of the opportunities and obstacles that exist to using forestry for global warming mitigation, as a way to understand these on-going debates.

Details at the ISEAS website.

Combating Climate Change: Solutions for Today and Tomorrow

November 18, 2009
2:30 pm	to	3:45 pm

Venue: Seminar Room 3-1, Level 3, Manasseh Meyer, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, 469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259772

Speaker: Matti Vanhanen, Prime Minister of Finland

Synopsis: Our generation of politicians, investors and entrepreneurs will be judged by future history according to the performance in the issues related to climate change and energy policies. Climate change knows no boundaries and consequences of climate change are terrifying. It leaves no other option but to act. In past years an intensive debate has been going on whether the best method to curb green house emissions is to agree on restrictions or to invest in new technologies. Today the picture is changing. The momentum for global arrangements to curb emissions is growing. Also the importance of creating incentives to engage the private sector in technology cooperation needs to be highlighted. R&D must be substantially scaled up, global technology objectives established and safe and sustainable technologies diffused. The objective of the Cleantech Finland brand is to develop clean technologies as the cornerstone of Finnish industries and to make Finland the leading country in the environmental business by 2012.

Details from the LKYSPP website.

Attempt to Manipulate and Confuse Public Thinking on Climate Change

Andy Ho, Senior Writer of The Straits Times wrote an article on Reasons for Singapore to be cool on global warming – Emissions cap will slow growth while scientific evidence is not clear-cut, published on 30 Oct 09. This is not the first time that he has debunk global warming, read his 2007 article: Who or what is the real culprit? and Eugene’s reply: The real culprit of global warming? Human activities.

This is Eugene’s reply to the Straits Times Forum on his article:

I refer to the article, “Reasons for S’pore to be cool on global warming” by Andy Ho (ST Oct 30).

As a compulsive reader of The Straits Times, I am disappointed and appalled by Mr Ho’s attempt to manipulate and confuse public thinking on climate change and the urgent actions needed, based on misleading claims and references in his article. This is a serious dent in this most widely-read national newspaper’s reputation, neutrality and journalistic integrity.

Mr Ho suggested that Singapore should be slow to sign up to any emissions cap, and attempted to show that the scientific evidence on man-made global warming is not clear-cut and that an emissions cap is not supported and is costly. I would like to refute the following eight points in his article:

1. Singapore should be slow to sign up to any emissions cap

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew spoke at the Singapore Energy Lecture last year and discussed about Singapore’s green efforts over the years and the need to maintain the efforts because:

The point is, if we don’t do this, we lose our status as a clean, green city and we’ll lose our business and lose our extra premium for being an unusual city.

Singapore is beginning to lose that extra green premium in the coming low-carbon world. Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and even China are taking proactive steps to become a low-carbon economy, to sign up to emissions cap, and to be recognised as green leaders. It is no longer enough just to be “clean and green” in this new carbon-constrained world.

Singapore has to fundamentally and holistically look at its economy and consider whether a business-as-usual economic development is possible and competitive. In the light of climate change, a real green country has to take the lead in setting emissions targets and reducing its emissions, ensuring energy and food security and sufficiency, and creating a green economy and green jobs.

Climate change represents crisis and also opportunities. There are great and challenging opportunities to make the change now and lessen future impacts and costs of climate change. The cost of taking action on climate change is high but the cost of not taking action is even higher. The Stern Review published in 2007 concluded that the earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be. Read more

The Weather Stations: A Site-Specific Dance Performance

The ARTS FISSION Company presents

The Weather Stations

A SITE-SPECIFIC DANCE PERFORMANCE

27 & 28 Nov 2009 8pm

The National Geographic Store, Vivo City Singapore

Ticketing: Standard $35 | Friends of ARTS FISSION $30

How we have forgotten to watch the weather and heed the signs as apocalypse.

Into the Freezing Chamber we go.

Let the Arctic ice cool

Our burning head and

Etch our awe to nature in frozen memory

The Weather Stations reflects modern people’s detachment to nature and their environment even in the face of extreme climate changes. The site-specific dance performance at the museum-like National Geographic Store allows the roving audience for an intimate, gallery viewing experience with intriguing distance between performers and audience.

Dancers in dramatic costumes with Pianist Shane Thio playing a wired harpsichord, and nanyin musicians performing ancient instruments add to the theatre intensity and urgency of our planet in peril.

The Weather Stations is the first of the four modules under the larger dance project titled LOCUST WRATH, an original creation initiated by Choreographer Angela Liong in collaborations with Composer Joyce Beetuan Koh and other artists and scientists on the theme of climate change and the impact on arts, culture and humanity.

Media Enquiries:

Dawn Pereira-Humphries

Arts Manager / Project Manager

Email: dawnpereira@artsfission.org

Website: www.artsfission.org

Performance concept:

The Weather Stations explores the natural elements with reference to Asian cultures as well as the flux and changes caused by climate change.

In the dance performance, the natural elements slide and regroup themselves through rotating solo dances that roll into duets and trios, etc. The interplay of the elements’ physical property adds coloration to the familiar weather phenomenon. Recurring motifs to evoke effects of climate change on the environment and people will be featured in different dramatic scenarios.

The highlights of the performance include collaborations with theatre director Lim Jen Erh, original score by Composer Joyce Koh, Pianist Shane Thio playing on an electronically-wired harpsichord and two nanyin musicians performing 1500 years old ancient music from southern China.

Viewing Format:

The roving audience moves in different groups between four preset weather stations located in various parts of the National Geographic Store. These locations include the Freezing Chamber and the Gallery with metal poles that provide interesting spatial challenge as well as unique viewing perspective.

Each weather station is a micro-environment connected to natural elements like ice, wind, rain, swirling eddies, or thunderstorms that reflect the dynamics of different meteorological phenomenon. The performance of the four stations happens simultaneously and in repetition to allow audience to linger from station to station.

The viewing expeditions will cumulate into a destination depot where all audience and performers will congregate at one place and witness the finale conclusion of a planet in peril.

Performance Duration: 45-minutes with no intermission

Number of Performers: 9 performers (6 Dancers and 3 Musicians)

Performance date/time: 27 & 28 Nov 2009, 8pm

Audience capacity per performance (standing room only): 300

Ticketing Enquiries:

The National Geographic Store: check in-store

The ARTS FISSION Company: tafcl@singnet.com.sg and 6238 6469

Key Issues for a Successful Copenhagen Climate Change Summit: The Role of Emerging Countries in Asia

September 2, 2009
10:30 am	to	12:00 pm

Speaker: Dr Bindu N Lohani, Vice President (Finance and Administration), Asian Development Bank

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

The international community is facing one of the biggest challenges to human development in recorded history – the challenge of climate change. And nowhere in the world will communities and economies be impacted as heavily as in the Asia and the Pacific. Burgeoning coastal and urban populations, poor environmental management, and heavy dependency on subsistence agriculture compound existing development challenges in a region where more than 900 million people in the region still live on less than $1.25 a day. Asia is vulnerable. For example, the economy-wide cost of climate change for Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and VietNam could reach 6.7% of GDP per year by 2100. For meeting the climate change targets by 2050, both developing and developed countries should be involved.

Dr Bindu Lohani will outline recent developments that increase our understanding of climate change drivers and impacts, globally and on Asia. There have been several ongoing debates around the subject of climate
change. In this context, Dr Lohani will discuss the four key issues which need to be included in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, in particular, the role of emerging countries in Asia, to have a meaningful post-Kyoto Protocol framework for climate change.

For details and registration, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

Climate Change in Singapore

August 4, 2009
3:00 pm	to	5:00 pm

Speaker: Dr Elspeth Thomson, Senior Fellow, Energy Studies Institute (ESI)

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

According to the fourth assessment report (AR4) of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the effects of climate change have already been observed. Climate change is considered to be one of the most serious threats to sustainable development, with adverse impacts expected on the environment, human health, food security, economic activity, natural resources and physical infrastructure. Scientific findings indicate that precautionary and prompt action is necessary.

Singapore is almost totally reliant on cross-border trade for raw material and food stuffs. W e are also directly affected by the environmental and ecological challenges facing our neighbours. Our small land area and close proximity to neighbouring ASEAN countries makes our economy even more vulnerable to the extremes of climate change and serve to remind us that our environment is tied to the environmental changes of our Southeast Asian neighbours.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) w ith the support of the Government of the United Kingdom recently released a Regional Review of the Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia. Dr Thomson will present highlights from the Singapore contribution to this report.

For more details on the seminar, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

Launch of Low Carbon Singapore

Green Future Solutions is launching our 5th website, Low Carbon Singapore, today.

Low Carbon Singapore is an online community dedicated to help Singapore reduce her carbon emissions and move towards the goal of a low carbon economy. Our aim is to educate individuals, communities, businesses and organisations on issues relating to climate change, global warming and clean energy, and to help them take action and reduce their carbon footprint through useful information, news, tips and resources.

Do take some time to browse around our site at http://www.lowcarbonsg.com. If you have any suggestions to make the site better or to report any bugs, do let us know. Thanks.

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