Budget 2020: A game changer for Singapore's climate policies?

Singapore

AS CLIMATE change increasingly occupies public discourse in Singapore, observers are expecting it to feature more strongly in Budget 2020, alongside the government's priorities in business restructuring and social spending.

This could come in the form of incentives to boost the adoption of electric vehicles and the use of green financial instruments or adaptation measures to combat rising seawater or urban heat, observers said.

Setting the stage is an update to Singapore's climate pledge under the Paris Agreement, expected to be unveiled any time now, as hinted at by Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli late last year.

Under the 2015 pledge, Singapore intends to reduce its emissions intensity - the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per dollar of gross domestic product - by 36 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, and to stabilise …