Businesses must transform, make sustainability a competitive advantage, says Grace Fu

BUSINESSES and corporations have a key role to play in Singapore's efforts to bring about meaningful climate change, in that they need to transform and make sustainability their competitive advantage, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) Grace Fu has said.

Seeking to bring the nation together in the cause to mitigate climate change, she emphasised the need for the entire nation, including its businesses and corporations, "to collectively rise to this existential challenge".

"The government cannot tackle climate change alone," she said, at a webinar on the recent report issued by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its implications for Singapore.

The IPCC, in its report unveiled in early August, sounded its most dire warning to date, saying the world is dangerously close to runaway warming, with consequences expected to be particularly bleak for Asia's disaster-prone poor. It called for immediate, rapid and large-scale action to bring down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres went as far as to describe the report as a "code red for humanity".

In her speech at the webinar, Ms Fu said that Singapore must press on with efforts in climate mitigation by curbing carbon emissions, and strengthen its national resilience to help the country better adapt to climate change.

In addition to the work of scientists, non-governmental organisations and the individual efforts of the community, Singapore "will need our businesses to transform, and make sustainability not just a core pillar of their operations but a competitive advantage, being more energy- and carbon-efficient and pursuing sustainable production".

"By working together on climate action, we can strengthen our climate resilience and with that, our national resilience," she said.

To decarbonise, Singapore is pursuing three key strategies, she said. Firstly, it is transforming its industry, economy and society to be more energy- and carbon-efficient and to adopt more forms of renewable energy.

"To drive carbon emissions reduction across the economy, Singapore introduced a carbon tax in 2019, the first in South-east Asia to do so. The government is reviewing the tax trajectory and level, post-2023," she said.

An MSE spokesman said, in response to queries from The Business Times: "In Singapore, our carbon tax rate is currently at $5/tCO2 (S$5 per tonne of greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions) from 2019-2023. Our initial intention was to increase the tax rate from 2023 - to between $10 and $15/ tCO2 by 2030.

"But, the effects of climate change have intensified, and the global momentum to address climate change has also significantly accelerated. Hence, the government is reviewing the post-2023 trajectory and level of our carbon tax. We plan to announce the outcome of this review in 2022."

The MSE spokesman also said it was considering several factors in its review of Singapore's carbon tax, including international climate change developments, how Singapore's domestic mitigation efforts are progressing, the impact on households and businesses, Singapore's economic competitiveness, and the role of carbon tax in stimulating the green economy.

In her speech, Ms Fu also said that Singapore intends to quadruple its solar energy deployment from 2020 levels to at least 2 GWp (gigawatt-peak) by 2030.

She added that Singapore's second key strategy to decarbonise entails investing in and drawing on low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation and storage, and low-carbon hydrogen.

Thirdly, it would work with global counterparts in its efforts.

"Our plans are not static, and we will continue to raise our climate ambitions as more options for emissions reductions emerge," said the minister.

In terms of Singapore's climate adaptation efforts, Ms Fu said Singapore has to first seek to understand what the IPCC findings mean in terms of local weather patterns in Singapore. To that end, the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) has begun the Third National Climate Change Study, to derive local climate projections based on global IPCC models. It is expected to complete the study by the end of next year.

She said Singapore has also been developing a heat mitigation plan, which includes increasing urban greenery, green buildings and scaling up the use of cool materials; and it is also implementing coastal protection in phases.