THE Singapore government has reiterated its efforts against climate change, after Dutch asset manager Van Lanschot Kempen blacklisted the country’s state-backed assets over environmental concerns.

On Jun 9, Bloomberg reported that Singapore had failed an updated ESG (environmental, social and governance) test used by Kempen to screen for environmental risks. A Kempen senior executive told the news agency that “the direction of travel in both biodiversity and climate is in reverse” in Singapore.

The executive also alleged that the country is using energy inefficiently to protect its people from the heat, with “the norm to have air-conditioned everything”.

Addressing the article, a statement issued by several government agencies and ministries on Thursday (Jun 15) said that the country “takes climate action seriously”, and has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The government said in a statement: “While it is laudable that Kempen has incorporated sustainability considerations in its investment decisions, we invite Kempen to learn more about Singapore’s firm commitments and concrete actions on sustainability.”

The response was jointly issued by the National Climate Change Secretariat, the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the National Parks Board.

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In a statement, Kempen said its ban applied to only a portion of its funds, and only to government-backed debt.

“The policy applies only to mandates used by some of our pension fund clients under our fiduciary management where ESG is further advanced; and it relates only to state-backed debt instruments and sovereign debt,” the firm said. “The research is based on a proprietary methodology that pools data from a variety of academic institutions and non-government organisations.”

The government disputed the article’s assertion that the share of renewables in Singapore’s energy mix fell between 2016 and 2021, flagging it as “inaccurate”.

“On the contrary, the share of renewable energy (solar) increased during this period, from 0.17 per cent to 0.71 per cent,” the government said. It also noted that the proportion was lower than in many other countries because of Singapore’s limited land area.

“However, our share of coal, the most pollutive of fossil fuels, is only 1.2 per cent, far lower than in many countries,” it added.

The statement highlighted that Singapore was the only country in South-east Asia to implement a broad-based carbon tax. This covers 80 per cent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is a “higher proportion than in many countries, including in Europe”.

It added that Singapore is “on track” to quadruple solar panel deployment from 2021, and achieve a target solar energy share of 3 per cent by 2030.

The country is also developing regional power grids that will enable the import of low-carbon electricity; this will make up about 30 per cent of Singapore’s electricity supply by 2035.

Meanwhile, hydrogen could potentially support up to 50 per cent of Singapore’s power supply by 2050, if the technology continues to improve.

On the topic of biodiversity, the government said that it is committed to conservation efforts, which include more than 2,000 plant species, 400 bird species, 250 species of hard corals and 35 mangrove species.

“Singapore has put in place recovery plans for over 120 plant and animal species, to help strengthen the resilience of our native biodiversity,” the government said.

The Nature Conservation Masterplan also sets out strategies to safeguard key terrestrial and marine habitats. Singapore has discovered more than 120 new plant species and rediscovered 140 plant species previously thought extinct.