Climate Change – An Emerging Security Threat

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

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

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

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