NEA launches S$23.5m programme for long-term climate change planning

THE National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Centre for Climate Research Singapore has launched a S$23.5 million programme to support long-term climate change adaptation planning, announced Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu on Tuesday (Jul 12).

In her opening address at the World Climate Research Programme’s Sea Level 2022 Conference, the minister said: “While mitigation action remains a key focus of our contribution against climate change, equal importance must be placed on climate adaptation, informed by the latest climate science.”

The new Climate Impact Science Research Programme, funded under Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan, will focus on five key priority areas – sea level rise; water resource and flood management; biodiversity and food security; human health and energy; and cross-cutting research to bridge science-policy translation, NEA said in a Tuesday press release.

Singapore, which is a highly urbanised, densely populated and low-lying country reliant on international trade, is vulnerable to climate change’s effects, it said.

Fu said: “By downscaling global climate projections and producing localised, high-resolution models of wind, rainfall, and temperature, we can better assess the impacts of climate change on local crop and aquaculture yields.

“We could also evaluate the indirect impact of higher temperatures through the increased prevalence of pests and diseases. This would in turn allow us to strengthen our food resilience.”