The Straits Times, 30 April 2009
New URA plan makes landscaping a must for new projects downtown
EXPECT to see more “gardens in the sky” in Singapore, especially in areas like Orchard Road, Raffles Place and along the Singapore River.
A new plan launched yesterday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) makes it a must for new developments [...]
Like London and Shanghai, Singapore obviously faces a long term threat from sea level rise, and faces challenges in maintaining suffiicient water supply and protecting the natural environment.
So what are some of the steps we can take to mitigate such risks?
This was a subject discussed by Professor Rob Wilby, University of Loughborough, an accomplished UK author and reviewer of the Assessment Reports of the IPCC, who was invited by the British High Comm to hold a Distinguished Visitors Lecture last week on “Adapting to uncertain climate variability and change” .
Had the chance to speak with Prof Wilby, and although he couldn’t comment directly on Singapore’s situation, he said lessons can be learnt from the UK, where studies have been put in place to figure out what the risks are, and what the options are in the future.
“This requires working amongst scientists, involves the public, and international experts coming in and so forth, it’s not a trivial experience you can complete in a short space of time. It requires a measured approach and a long term view of the future,” he said.
“We’re talking about to the end of the century, also recognising that sea level rise won’t stop at 2100 , but beyond that, it will rise further, so we need a far sighted approach.”
Some take-aways from his presentation:
1. minimise adverse environmental side effects
Although adaptation is important, but there must be considerations to the natural environment. Early studies must be done.
2. recognise that decisions taken now will affect future options
3. use scenarios to test fitness of adaptation measures and policies
and 4.provide guidance for practitioners
One important part of the assessment process, he said, was to ask this question:
are there government measures and assistance in place to react in the right way or qucikly enough?
More than a year in the making, the new blueprint for a sustainable Singapore sets out three key areas for a cleaner, greener environment
GREEN buildings make up a paltry 1 per cent of buildings in Singapore today, but come 2030, that number will grow to cover 80 per cent of all buildings.
This is one of [...]
by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, April 28 2009
SINGAPORE’S policymakers have unveiled a sweeping blueprint, 15 months in the making, to help build a greener, more energy efficient and sustainable nation.
The $1 billion plan, to be implemented over the next five years, will change everything from the cityscape and landscape here, to the way Singaporeans live and the way businesses are run.
If successful, it will make energy usage here more efficient, reduce pollution and expand the nation’s green spaces – even as the demand for resources rises along with economic growth.
The report of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) – co-authored by five different ministries – also pledges to advance Singapore’s ambition to be a clean technology and urban environmental solutions hub.
This sector is set to add an estimated $3.4 billion to economic output and create 18,000 “green collar” jobs by 2015.
Speaking at the launch of the 130-page report yesterday, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan acknowledged that the document comes amid Singapore’s worst recession since independence.
“The temptation is to slow down our efforts in the area of sustainable development while we tackle the immediate economic challenges. However, the two are not mutually exclusive,” he said.
“If we want to face the challenges of the future, we really have to start now, today. It’s going to take us a long time… but we’re financially committed to it.”
The report outlines the findings and recommendations of the IMCSD, which was set up in January last year to look at ways to create a sustainable nation in the wake of increasing global awareness of the world’s dwindling natural resources and climate change.
Over the past year, more than 700 people including members of the public, leaders of non-governmental organisations, businesses, grassroots organisations, academics, and media figures offered views through various focus group discussions.
Members of the public also submitted more than 1,300 suggestions in the process.
The feedback has resulted in some aggressive targets, including a 35 per cent improvement in energy efficiency from 2005 levels, as well as a recycling rate of 70 per cent, by 2030.
Singapore also wants to increase its proportion of environmentally friendly “green” buildings from 1 per cent currently to at least 80 per cent by 2030.
Industry observers yesterday called the report “comprehensive and impressive”, but some also highlighted critical gaps.
Dr Geh Min, former president of the Nature Society, said the report was a “a good reflection of extensive intra-governmental as well as community dialogue”.
She applauded the attention given to solar energy, alternative transport such as cycling, and biodiversity conservation.
Singapore Environment Council executive director Howard Shaw said the report was “holistic in nature, capturing key areas”.
However, he said that it failed to include discussion of carbon emissions and “cap-and-trade systems”, a form of carbon trading where polluting industries have to buy carbon credits for the right to pollute.
The other IMCSD co-chair, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim, said yesterday that Singapore, which lacks natural renewable sources such as wind and geothermal energy, cannot realistically take on such emission targets.
However, the nation is “betting big” on solar energy and is investing heavily in the sector, and will not rule out mass adoption of solar power when it becomes cost-effective to do so, he added.
In any case, the report is an “evolving document” which will be reviewed every five years, said Dr Yaacob.
Responding to the recommendations, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that he was encouraged by the participation of so many Singaporeans in the report.
“This issue concerns not just one or two ministries, but the whole country. Hence we will tackle it using a whole-of- government approach,” he added.
by Jessica Cheam, The Sunday Times, April 26 2009
[overseas properties]
Falling prices and appreciation of Sing $ put that coveted address within reach
London property may be among the most coveted in the world, but it has still not been immune to the global economic fallout.
But while falling prices are giving home owners sleepless nights, they spell [...]
by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, April 25 2009
Award will recognise those who contribute to creation of liveable cities
WHAT does it take to become a world- class city? Innovative planning projects, policies and solutions that display foresight and good governance, it seems.
These are the qualities that Singapore is looking for in a new award it [...]
America, the nation of car drivers and polluters, is finally getting some decent public infrastructure!
You can read more about it here at Climate Progress.
Let’s hope this is not derailed by lobby groups or Republicans who lack the foresight to back this.
Thanks Julian, for highlighting the interesting post.
Read full post...by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, April 20 2009
They say that in a downturn, recognising high performance is critical to retaining and motivating key talent so as to sustain growth, and it need not be money alone
WITH unemployment numbers hitting record highs, people will tell you they are grateful just to have a job these [...]
Interesting commentary by The Guardian’s Will Hutton.
Some of my favourite bits here:
It is just that he has the chutzpah to acknowledge what is obvious. Despite the threat, and the mounting evidence, there is no hope of mobilising western governments and the public into action by appeals to green utopianism or impossible demands to give up our current standard of living. There needs to be a new language, a focus on climate change alone, because that is what counts and is a practical route forward that makes sense to the mass of people. Otherwise, we really are lost.
This is a point I often try and articulate in my own stories. There’s no use trying to make humanity give up the standard of living they’re enjoying, but if they can revolutionize infrastructure such that humans can enjoy a high standard of living while doing it sustainably, that will be the only solution.
How, he asks, are we ever to mobilise public opinion about distant threats that inevitably feel not very real? By the time it is proven that the scientists were right, it will be too late to do anything. The inhabitants of Easter Island who destroyed their own ecosystem are a warning. Human beings are myopic. Now the same myopia is evident globally. We have to do better, not least to see off the siren-like arguments of the Nigel Lawsons.
I’ve said it before, taking action requires foresight.
The vast majority are unmoved. Worse, many mainstream environmental intellectuals drop rigour when it comes to the environment, climate change and risk. Under the precautionary principle, almost nothing should be done that endangers the climate, just in case the worst scientific warnings are right. The aim should be sustainable development - to grow economically in a way that passes the globe on to the next generation in the same condition in which we found it.
Giddens joins Lawson in dismissing this thinking as wretchedly woolly. Are we really going to risk nothing? This is a refutation of our very risk-taking humanity. In any case, there is little chance of building a consensus over which risks matter and to what degree. Instead, the percentage principle should rule - taking risks in proportion to the probable good and bad outcomes. Moreover, sustainable and development should not be used together so loosely. Development is a dynamic concept that necessarily depletes resources. Poor countries such as China or India can only develop unsustainably. They must burn coal. To ask the entire world to commit to sustainable development is to damn the less developed world to poverty. Those countries will never agree.
I actually disagree with this. There can be sustainable development, we just need the transfer of the most innovative technologies from the West to flow quickly into these developing nations. The truth of the matter is, however, that the West expects to be paid for this. While the developing nations do not think they should have to pay, since they could just do the alternative: pollute their way to prosperity, like the West did.
Climate change cannot be a political game, to be played as and when it suits particular protesters - G20ers or middle-class nimbys. The country needs to develop a vision of where it wants to be in, say, 2025, in terms of carbon emissions, energy independence and wider economic structures. Then it needs to “back-cast” to today and make sure what it does is part of a wider plan that builds, step by step, towards that vision. So if the government wants to build a third Heathrow runway, it must show how it intends to compensate for higher air traffic with radically lower carbon emissions elsewhere. It is called planning. It needs to come back into fashion - fast.
The best arguments to kill the “so-what” factor over climate change are not scary tales from a far-distant future. It is to argue for investment in energy efficiency because it saves cash and makes strategic sense. Tidal and wind power along with nuclear energy emit less carbon, but they also free Britain and the west from dependence on Russia and radical Islamicist oil producing states.
Cars powered by electricity or hydrogen are cheaper. The less-developed world will only follow suit if the west picks up the bill. But to persuade western publics to make sacrifices requires more than trying to terrify them. It requires laying out concrete actions that collectively make sense now.
Greens and environmentalists will challenge Giddens’s book. It is true that as a result of their campaigning the culture is changing; but far too slowly. The danger is far too serious to be co-opted by the left, nimbyists, G20 protesters, princes or utopian conservationists. There needs to be a visionary plan that spells out where we want to be, and in which a series of feasible and justifiable actions is delivered by the state which can then be backed by mainstream opinion. Otherwise our civilisation will go the same way as that of Easter Island.
by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 17 April 2009
Work on underground oil storage facility to start by year’s end; phase 1 to cost $890m
PHASE 1 of Jurong Rock Cavern, the first underground oil storage facility to be built in South-east Asia, will finally begin construction by year’s end and cost about $890 million.
The first storage [...]
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