SINGAPORE - Governments worldwide need to build up political support for greater momentum in climate action, said President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on June 18.
Climate change is the most significant sustainable development issue and there needs to be “more urgent, coherent, coordinated global action”, he said.
There are clear headwinds against this even in the most advanced democracies and also in many developing countries, he said, speaking on a panel about key challenges to sustainability at London School of Economics’ Global School of Sustainability.
“So we need to build up the political tailwinds that can push against and offset those political headwinds – and it can be done.”
He was joined on the panel by deputy secretary-general of the United Nations Amina Mohammed, executive vice-president of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition Teresa Ribera, and former Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
President Tharman noted that while people are aware that there is something “not normal” about the climate and weather, other issues such as jobs and cost of living weigh on their minds more heavily. The challenge then lies in shifting the narrative to one that goes beyond climate change, to making it relatable to people’s everyday livelihoods, quality of life and a sense of togetherness.
This requires framing the climate narrative as something much more social, much more local, and much more immediate, he added.
“So we have got to find a way of joining up their concerns, joining up their sort of intuitive sense that…things are not going right (with) the climate even if they do not understand the science,” he said.
He cited a recent survey which showed that explaining the health consequences of climate change – such as heat stress, vector-borne diseases and the greater risk of pandemics – resulted in people being twice as likely to get on board with government action on climate change.
“The costs of inaction are vastly greater than the costs of acting,” he warned, but investments have to be made and costs have to be borne today to avoid much larger costs in future.
“The difference in timeframes is what bedevils the politics of climate change,” he said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Amina who agreed that the narrative shift should be to view action on climate change as an investment and not a cost.
“It’s an investment in people, in the environment, in outcomes that we need to see in people’s lives, and all the way back again to human dignity,” she said.
Sri Mulyani also agreed with President Tharman on the political commitment required at the global, regional and national level to move things forward on the sustainability front.
The topic of mobilising public institutions and incentivising them to invest in climate change issues was also raised, with a question directed to President Tharman on how Singapore has been able to move on this front. He attributed Singapore’s ability to do so in part to its political culture.
He said: “How political culture shapes institutions is how you build the long term into the short term. How you create fiscal instruments and borrowing instruments that ensure a fair distribution of costs and benefits across generations is a central fiscal challenge.”
“We are in the habit of thinking long-term in Singapore, and that includes fiscal policy,” he added.
“We realised that it is going to be far less costly for us to start investing early and avoid a much larger cost later on,” he said, citing Singapore’s move to set aside at least $100 billion to protect itself by constructing sea walls and providing coastal protections. Singapore’s average sea level is projected to rise by up to 1.15m by 2100.
He explained that the Government put money aside in a dedicated fund whenever the Republic had budget surpluses, and explained to the public the purpose of the fund.
Around a tenth of the amount needed has been achieved, he said, alongside new borrowing instruments for coastal protection and other significant long-term infrastructure projects.
“It’s an example of institutional innovation,” he said.
“But the core of it is fair distribution of costs and benefits across generations, so that you don’t leave it to a future government to find out that…they’re going to have to use current revenues to pay for something really urgent when crisis really hits and when it’s already very late.”
Asked about the overall challenge of implementing innovations and research in sustainability, President Tharman said that while existing technologies in solar, wind and renewables will allow governments to bend the emissions curve over the next decade, they will not bring emissions to net zero.
“To get to net zero, we need a major new push in innovation on what’s called hard to abate sectors: cement, steel, maritime, aviation, and certain very specific heavy industries, (which) account for 40 per cent of global emissions.”
That is a task for innovation – and one that requires p…
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