Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at the Singapore - India Business Dialogue 2016
Nov 15, 2016
I am very happy to join you this morning at the Fourth Singapore-India Business Dialogue.
The focus of the dialogue is on sustainable urban management, and I think the topic is a very timely and relevant one, especially in light of the mega trends and challenges we face. I believe all of you know that our global population has been increasing, and is expected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050. As Professor Lily Kong said just now, while the population is increasing, the profile is changing too. More and more people are moving into cities – by 2050, 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas.
Everyone who is coming into this new world and moving to the city expects a better life. Everyone expects the same standard of living that they would be able to find, say, in a first world city, like in America or Europe. We should certainly strive to provide them with a better life and that same standard of living that they aspire. Today, the average person living in a first world city in America consumes about 44,000 kWh of energy per year. Imagine if everyone else in the world in the future were to consume that same amount of energy to realise their aspirations for a better life, we would effectively have to double – or even triple – our global energy system. That’s what it amounts to – if everyone achieves that standard of living under today’s energy consumption.
And the simple fact is that we can’t possibly expand our energy system to that scale without a significant expansion of fossil fuels. Of course, we hope that there will be advancements in energy technologies that will allow us to generate greater supplies of low-carbon and affordable power. And then hopefully, we can expand the world’s energy system without having to rely on fossil fuels. But under today’s trajectory, it is not conceivable to see that happening, and so if we had to expand fossil fuels significantly, the conclusion is simply that you will have more global warming and climate change. The only other way in which we can avoid such a scenario is to change our mindset about urban living. We have to find new ways of urban living that are less energy-intensive. It cannot be based on today’s models of urban cities which are designed around high vehicle-usage; which are highly energy-intensive; which can end up being highly pollutive, and harmful to the environment. We need new models of urban living.
It is possible to design and build cities in a way that is sustainable and still highly liveable. In fact, a compact, dense and well-planned city is one of the most green and sustainable ways to live. It may seem like a paradox – when you pull people together, design a very compact way – why should that be better and greener? But when you do that and plan it properly, a compact city with a compact design, in fact, reduces our physical footprint. It reduces urban sprawl. And it means that resources like food, water, electricity, education, and healthcare services can be delivered in a more efficient and effective manner. The result on people is also significant. People living in a more compact city get to live closer to where they work, and spend less time commuting. In a big city with urban sprawl, you literally can take more than an hour to get from your home to your city by driving a car, or using vehicles, all of which contribute to particulate matter, pollution, and harms the environment. But if you live close to the city, commuting time is reduced – the person feels better because they don’t have to spend so much time commuting, and they get more convenient access to amenities, facilities and social services. All of these, I think, are the advantages of designing cities in a well-planned, compact manner that would provide citizens with a high-quality living environment, yet in a way that’s sustainable and not harmful to the environment.
Realising these benefits of a compact city doesn’t happen by chance. It needs good planning, coordination and implementation. If you do it well, then a compact city with a compact design can offer many benefits. And that’s what we have tried to do in Singapore. We only have 700 square kilometres on our tiny island, and we do everything we can to ensure the best use of our limited resources. We take the long-term view, and plan over generations, and implement our plans over several terms of government, because many of these things we do for infrastructure and urban development are not short-term in nature. They are very long term, and we work very hard to develop Singapore as a liveable and sustainable city. I think most people would say, objectively speaking, our efforts over the last 50 years have paid off. Today, we are known as a City in a Garden. We are a modern and sophisticated urban city, yet nearly half of our island is covered by greenery. We have not pushed urbanisation and development to every square inch of our island, but we maintain half of our island covered with greenery, and we are continuing to enhance our greenery, not just at the street level, but going upwards, with sky-rise greenery. Greenery in our buildings. And we also have, all over our island, housing estates nestled in lush greenery and beautiful waters. It’s a living environment that we seek to make as attractive and appealing as possible.
For us, urbanisation is not just about rapid development at all cost, it’s not about having more new buildings and skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, but it’s also about finding that balance between human and nature, and ensuring that this critical balance is maintained. That’s why you will see in Singapore large tracts of land which are protected as natural reserves to preserve our unique biodiversity. In fact, within Singapore and the nature reserves that we have, you will find more species of plant varieties than you would in the entire American continent, which is quite remarkable. We are continuing to find new species, including endangered species of animals which we are discovering and preserving. We are building homes not just for our people, but also for our animals too. And that harmonious co-existence is what we seek to achieve in this city – an urban city which is also a City in a Garden.
Some years back, several designers put up an exhibition at the Venice Biennale called 1000 Singapores. The motivation behind this particular exhibition was the question: “What happens if we organise everyone in the world to live like Singapore?” The answer is that we will only need 1000 Singapores, and will only take up less than 0.5 per cent of global land area. We will use much less energy and water, and we will be far more efficient in resources.
It was an interesting thought experiment about the potential benefits of what we can achieve with a more compact design and a more intelligent city design. This was done by architects and artists, and not by the government, because we have no intention of replicating Singapore elsewhere in the world. We are very mindful that what works here in Singapore may not work in other countries. The context is different, the scale is different, and our circumstances are different.
We also recognise that improving Singapore is a journey without end. We do not rest on our laurels; we are very mindful that our own citizens and residents’ expectations are rising, and other cities are continuing to move ahead – developing solutions and setting new standards for us. In fact, there is competition among cities, and I think it is a good competition. There are about 400 cities around the world with at least a million people living in them, and each one wants to enter the premiere league of cities. There is competition for the cities to provide better environments to attract talents and investments. We too are learning from the experience and innovations of other cities, to improve Singapore and to improve our urban design.
I believe the key to success in getting our cities right lies not just in good planning, but the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and to implement the plans well. I would like to share a conversation I recently had with a friend from India. He had come to Singapore, wanting to learn more about our urban plans to see if there are insights that he can bring back. He said there is a lot of interest about Singapore in India, and many officials have been coming to look at our plans, hoping to glean new insights and find solutions for urban designs.
When he was here, he found the plans very good, and not very different from those that he has seen before – the plans that any consultant can develop for you. But what’s different in Singapore is what we do with the plans – the mindset and process of continually reviewing our plans, updating our policies, implementing them well, and adapting them to changing circumstances and needs. The plans were not static, the plans were not just done to showcase plans, but the plans were updated and were implemented well across many years. As I have said earlier, we do this across not just several years, but several decades and over several terms of government. In the process of implementation, we are always updating, improving and fine-tuning the plans to changing circumstances.
This mindset of continuous improvement and learning is critical. It is an approach to governance and policy-making that is pragmatic and focused on action and outcomes. In other words, policies are based not on ideology but on what works; if something works, we do it again and scale it up, and if it doesn’t work, we forego it or change tracks, fine-tune and update the plans, so that they can work better.
I will cite some concrete examples. One example is what we did in Marina Bay. We have developed the area over many years through reclamation and by building up this new city. The typical approach would have been for individual buildings to have their own chiller rooms and cooling towers. What if we were to try something different? Instead of individual cooling towers, can we do it through a centralised cooling system for greater economies of scale, and for greater efficiency? The next thought was whether we can go further, and instead of having it within buildings, push the cooling system underground? So that was what we did in Marina Bay.
Over at Marina Bay, we have a centralised underground cooling system for the entire district. It took some time and effort to do this. We had to coordinate across agencies, set up new rules, and even set up a new regulator to regulate district cooling. We had new legislation in place. It was a step-by-step process of updating, learning by doing, and eventually putting in place a whole system.
Today we have the world’s largest underground district cooling system in Marina Bay. It has put otherwise unused underground space to good use, and freed up land and rooftop buildings for other amenities like rooftop gardens and swimming pools. That’s why on top of Marina Bay Sands, you have a rooftop swimming pool; otherwise, instead of that iconic swimming pool, you would have a chilling tower and cooling system. We have also generated energy savings of more than 40%. This was not something we had thought about when we first developed Marina Bay; it was something that came about later through our learning and visits to other countries, which we progressively implemented – learning along the way, and putting in new legislation and new rules.
Another example is the deployment of solar photovoltaic panels on our building rooftops. It was something we had thought about doing more than a decade ago, because in Singapore we have an alternative energy disadvantage. Very limited sources of renewable energy can be deployed here – we have no geothermal and tidal energy, and have very little wind, and solar energy is the plausible way of deploying renewable energy. When we started off, we found that solar panels were very expensive, and it was very hard to make it work. The grid operator was also concerned that if there was too much solar power, it may impact grid stability. There was very little take-up, very few commercial operators were prepared to do this.
But we didn’t give up, we continued to experiment and research on level of solar irradiance from buildings and analysed results, so that we could determine the buildings that are suitable for deployment of solar panels, and we also updated our rules along the way. We next tried to aggregate solar demand across public sector buildings. Instead of individual building owners calling for tenders, we aggregated the demand across multiple government agencies to create economies of scale and to have lead demand. We have done this for several years, and today the programme has yielded very good results.
Solar panels are now installed by private sector operators without any cost to the government. We call a tender, and the operators come in to install the solar panels on the rooftops. The operators recover the cost by selling electricity to the grid. They are also able to pass down a discount in electricity price to the building owners and Town Councils. It is a win-win for all parties. Now, we are able to enjoy cleaner and cheaper power. This is another example that has worked well, but in the beginning, no one would have thought that it would be possible. Through experimentation over time, we have made it work.
We are continuing to innovate by harnessing technology to become a smarter nation. We are tapping on new technologies, making use of big data and data analytics to improve sustainability in our next phase. For example, Singaporeans use what we call the EZ-link card to travel on MRT trains. We are collecting that data to understand commuter flows – how people commute from place to place, and by analysing the big data, we are able to identify areas for improvement in our public transport system.
We are testing out autonomous vehicles, driver-less cars, and we are perhaps one of the first cities in the world to have a trial that is ongoing for driver-less taxies. We are continuing to expand research and investment in this area. We are using environmental data to simulate the interaction of factors like wind and temperature with the built environment, in order to work out good passive designs without reliance on air-conditioning for a comfortable environment. We are using smart meters to better manage our power consumption and smoothen out the peaks in our energy system. These are some of the new things we are trying out, to push the boundaries and the frontiers of sustainable development in Singapore.
So while our core mission is to make Singapore a more sustainable and liveable city, our plans to achieve this goal are always evolving, through innovation, and through close collaboration with our partners and stakeholders.
Between Singapore and India, we see many opportunities to work together in the area of urban solutions and sustainable urban management. Both India and Singapore share very close ties, and we have progressively strengthened these ties with initiatives like the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. Cooperation between the two countries is broad-based; it covers many areas, including security, trade and investment, and skills development. More recently, we have worked more closely with the Indian government to draft a master plan for Amaravati, the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh. The project has been attracting interests from international players, and we are already starting to see developments taking place.
Singaporean companies have also been investing in India across many sectors, just as the number of Indian companies based in Singapore has also been rising over time. For example, in the energy sector, Sembcorp develops and operates assets in both thermal and renewable energy sectors in India. And Sembcorp is now one of the biggest foreign investors in India's power sector. These are important partnerships that we believe will continue to grow over time.
Going forward, both Singapore and India face many common challenges, but there are also many new opportunities opening up. Sustainable urbanisation must become part of our planning DNA, for both planners in Singapore and India. It must be intrinsic and integral in the way we think about developing our cities. Both Singapore and India can partner each other and lead in the area of sustainable development, and together we can build more sustainable and liveable cities, and make our world a better place for humanity. Thank you very much.