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Green Singapore

By: KeithTimimi Date: 8 April 2010

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The free-spirited family-man internet entrepreneur who fell in love with the study of economics. And

Green Singapore Are Those Lights Energy Efficient? Photo Credit: Singapor3
Singapore, 20 May 2009. Having asked ‘Is Red China Going Green?’ last week, in the second of green economy articles we look at Singapore. Although this tiny Asian city state doesn’t boast much in the way of resources, it will do what it knows best - plan, invest and create research-led ‘hubs’ - to become a sustainable development leader.

At first blush, Singapore doesn’t hold much promise as a renewable energy or clean tech leader. Although Singapore gets plenty of sun, being near the equator, it doesn’t have large tracts of land for solar farms or to grow biofuel crops. Neither does it have enough regular wind or any geothermal resources, and its waters are too busy for tidal power projects.

However, as with so much else in its brief history, Singapore is looking to turn its disadvantage into opportunity. As a small and concentrated urban country, Singapore is ideally placed to be become a live test bed for new technologies. It has already developed a series of research & development centers, called ‘hubs’, at OneNorth, where academia and industry meet. Biopolis at OneNorth has already become a leader in biotechnology, and the authorities hope to replicate that success with specific sustainable technologies.

It can go further by implementing those technologies live into both government, business and civil settings, in a rapid prototyping and commercialization process. The obvious example is hybrid and electric cars. A network of recharging stations could cover the island in weeks. In fact entrepreneurs have already tried a number of times to introduce electric cars in Singapore but without government support those schemes floundered. There is a limited Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) scheme currently running for taxis, but critics believe the authorities need to go a lot further.

The Government of Singapore recently released a Sustainable Development Blueprint and committed to invest $1 billion into it. It expects to generate 18,000 jobs and add $3.4b to national GDP from the clean technology sector by 2015. Some of the key planks of the plan include:

$680 million for research and development in clean energy (particularly solar power and batteries), water and environmental technologies
Singapore plans to increase its proportion of ‘Greenmark’ environmentally friendly buildings from 1 per cent today to 80 per cent by 2030
It plans to become a leader in urban solar energy projects, and is converting the roofs of all government buildings to be solar-panel enabled
It will create the infrastructure needed to support electric or hybrid cars, and to cover the island with 200km of park connectors and cycle lanes. It is already the greenest major city in Asia
Greater focus will be placed on maintaining the biodiversity of the islands and marine surrounds
Training centres to be created either by local universities, or in association with foreign partners such as the Singapore-Delft Water Alliance, which has helped Singapore already to join the Netherlands as a leader in water treatment and membrane technology
The country will host global events and think tanks, such as the Centre for Liveable Cities, the International Water Week and the World Cities Summit

While generally applauding the thought and planning that has gone into the program, critics were disappointed that no carbon limits have been set, either in a cap-and-trade’ carbon emission permits system, or using a carbon tax. Heavy industry including large petrochemical plants, IT infrastructure and residents’ love of air conditioning all contribute to heavy per-capita pollution levels, and unless there is a real penalty for use, there are fears that pollution levels could grow even as these schemes are put into place.

Hydra Badi, EconomyWatch.com