Singapore's climate change policy: the limits of learning

Contemporary Southeast Asia, Dec, 2006 by Natasha Hamilton-Hart

Singapore's intention to accede to the Kyoto Protocol was formally announced in parliament in March 2006. In his parliamentary speech, as part of the annual budget debate, Yaacob Ibrahim, the minister for the environment and water resources, described climate change as "one of the major environmental challenges of our time" and asserted that "Singapore's commitment to climate change" was "consistent with our good record on environmental issues" (MEWR 2006b). The speech does not give any background information on the Kyoto Protocol or the international climate regime, (15) or explicitly justify Singapore's accession to the protocol. It notes that "Singapore intends to engage in the ongoing international debate on how to manage greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that is not harmful to economic growth". In terms of domestic policies on the issue, the only new move announced at this time was that air conditioners and refrigerators would have to carry mandatory energy efficiency labels from mid-2007, since most still did not carry labelling despite the voluntary scheme in place since 2002.

In conjunction with Singapore's decision to accede to the Kyoto Protocol, the National Energy Efficiency Committee was further expanded and renamed the National Climate Change Committee (NCCC), made up of representatives from several government agencies and private sector groups and companies. (16) It has a mandate to promote energy efficiency and less carbon-intensive energy, promote awareness, promote competence to respond to climate change and to understand Singapore's vulnerability to climate change. The NCCC will provide stewardship for Singapore's National Climate Change Strategy, which was launched at the end of May 2006. It aims to develop a comprehensive approach to forging Singapore's response to climate change, bringing together various public awareness, energy efficiency and mitigation initiatives through a process that includes avenues for public consultation and feedback. (17)

To sum up Singapore's climate change policy, there are three major elements that can be discerned. First, the issue has gained increasing attention and profile within both the country's environmental policy and its energy policy, both leading to, and as a consequence of, the country's decision to accede to the Kyoto Protocol. While this is a definite change in policy, it is one that came comparatively late. By comparison, Europe's climate change policy began to take shape in the 1980s (Jachtenfuchs 1996) and all of Singapore's Asian neighbours acceded to the Protocol before Singapore. Japan, Korea and even some of Singapore's much poorer Southeast Asian neighbours have paid more attention to the science of climate change and been much more involved in scientific and policy discussions on the issue (Fort 2004; IGES 2005).

Second, by clinging to its official developing country status, Singapore has continued to refuse to accept any obligation to reduce absolute emissions. In fact, its declared emissions target is for a substantial increase in emissions over 1990 levels. This is because its goal of reducing the carbon intensity of the economy--the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per dollar of GDP--by 25 per cent from 1990 to 2012 is consistent with a substantial increase in absolute emissions, given that the economy has grown at far higher rates than the targetted annual average decline in carbon intensity. By 2004 the carbon intensity target had already almost been met, which was consistent with the recorded doubling of absolute emissions between 1990 and 2000, and an increase of per capita emissions by over 50 per cent in the same period (Earthtrends 2005).