As the climate crisis looms, more money is pouring into purported solutions. But such ambition, often from the private sector, is hampered by a lagging public sector, says Associate Professor Winston Chow of the Singapore Management University.
“The policy inertia that seems to have taken root — that has been the cause of what Greta Thunberg has said: ‘30 years of blah, blah, blah.’ The ‘blah, blah, blah’ has to stop,” says Chow.
However, following last month’s conclusion of the 2021 United Nations climate change conference — otherwise known as the COP26 summit, governments may soon get serious about tackling emissions, he adds. “I’m very heartened. I would think that after some of the fallout from Glasgow, this inertia will be overcome — sooner, definitely, than later.”
Speaking at a WWF Singapore webinar on Nov 26, Chow acknowledged that some action was taken towards keeping global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Prior to the COP26, climate tracking groups had estimated that the figure was between 2.6 and 2.7 degrees Celsius. At Glasgow, all countries agreed to strengthen their current emissions targets, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and revisit them in 2022, three years ahead of schedule.
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With this commitment, projections dropped by 0.2 degrees Celsius.
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India, for example, announced that they plan to have net zero emissions within their territorial boundaries by 2070. To offset emissions, India may use carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) solutions, among others.
With this, we can go below that two-degree threshold by the end of the century, says Chow. But there is still a long way to go, he adds. “That potential, that gap between pledges and action has to be addressed in the years to come.”
A silver bullet for climate change
The talk around climate change solutions, especially in the business sphere, emphasises well-funded tech. “It is often seen as a silver bullet … but that isn’t really the case,” says Chow. “There are many existing technologies that can help businesses, governments and people in terms of important climate action.”
While they may appear “less flashy” than new technologies, Chow highlights three present-day solutions. Abatement technologies, for example, help reduce emissions. These include replacing fossil fuels with nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal power.
As these options pick up steam, they will become cheaper to implement. “The cost of renewable energies, especially for solar, has plummeted substantially in the space of about 15 years,” says Chow.
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The cost of solar power has dropped by 20% each time the capacity of photovoltaic cells doubled.
Then, there are the CCUS technologies. In June, the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) announced that Singapore’s CO2 emissions, mainly from power plants and industrial facilities, could be captured and stored underground.
Alternatively, the emissions could be turned into minerals for land reclamation or turned into kerosene and methanol. “It seems that the government is going to push a lot towards CCUS in the future. Given the interest in the petrochemical and energy generation industry in Jurong Island, this is probably one of the more viable ways to reduce Singapore’s CO2 emissions in the near future,” says Chow.
That said, CCUS technologies are “not mature” and “relatively nascent”, according to Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng. Speaking in Parliament in July, Dr Tan, who is also the manpower minister, highlighted green hydrogen as “a key technology” in Singapore’s decarbonisation journey.
Finally, nature-based solutions, like planting trees or protecting mangroves, can help remove CO2 from the atmosphere. By protecting threatened forests across the tropics, we can avoid the loss of almost two billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is greater than the emissions of Indonesia and Singapore combined.
What must Singapore do?
The commitments at COP26 contain many implications for domestic policies worldwide, especially in Singapore, says Chow. “I’ve been on record saying that for next year’s Budget, the carbon tax will be reassessed. I won’t be surprised if the magnitude of the carbon tax will be increased substantially, in light of this important reassessment of NDCs next year,” says Chow.
First announced at Budget 2018, Singapore’s carbon tax rate is fixed at $5 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent until 2023. In comparison, Sweden’s carbon tax, which was introduced in 1991, has gradually increased to SEK1,200 ($180.82) this year.
Finance Minister Lawrence Wong confirmed earlier this year that his ministry is reviewing “the level and trajectory” of Singapore’s carbon tax and will provide an update at the 2022 Budget.
In addition, dated infrastructure, like old air-conditioning units, may be generating more problems than noise. Chow thinks Singapore should get rid of inefficient cooling technologies. “They generate a lot of waste heat and air pollution. Things like centralised cooling or district-level cooling removes all these.”
“We can talk a lot about the importance of new technologies for energy generation. But if we omit how that energy is distributed, we’re going to lose that efficiency and that potential for a good solution,” he adds. “There are a lot of opportunities here to improve the grid.”
Photos and Infographics: Bloomberg, Dr Winston Chow, Carbon Brief, Popular Science
