Tackling climate change need not be a Sisyphean task

WE LIVE in an unprecedented period in our history, with the "C" pandemic becoming the defining health crisis of our time. Economies need to defend this together and work more closely than ever to build a more sustainable, equitable and inclusive future.

This is also the time to ensure that we do not turn a blind eye to globalisation's structural failings and short-sightedness that have rapidly led us down the crisis corridor over the years towards the other "C" phenomenon - climate change. In his National Day Rally speech last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called climate change "one of the gravest challenges facing humankind", and rightly so. Singapore was named one of the cities that will face "unprecedented" climate shifts by 2050, said scientists from Crowther Lab, a research group based at ETH Zurich, a science and technology university in Switzerland.

Compared to pre-industrial times a century ago, the Earth's average temperature has increased by almost 2 degrees Celsius, with 2020 predicted to be the hottest year on record. This is a very significant increase. Whether one agrees or vehemently disagrees with Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement, I am sure all of us can agree that scientific evidence for rapid climate change is unequivocal. One of the primary reasons for this is urbanisation.