Speech by SMS Sim Ann at the 2021 World Cities Day China Observance and 1st Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Cities Global Conference
Nov 1, 2021
Happy World Cities Day! I’m glad to join you at the First Sustainable Development Goals Cities Global Conference. This is a valuable platform for city leaders to share experiences and learn from one another on “Adapting Cities for Climate Change”.
Climate change is the collective challenge of our generation and future generations to come. Governments worldwide recognise the economic and social costs that climate change can inflict and the pressing need for concerted action to turn the tide. Singapore must play its part in this global action.
Sustainable Urban Development Initiatives under the Singapore Green Plan 2030
Earlier this year, we launched the Singapore Green Plan 2030, as a whole-of-nation movement to advance Singapore’s national agenda on sustainable development. We set concrete sectoral targets for the next 10 years, strengthening Singapore’s commitments under the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
Singapore adopts a multi-pronged approach in mitigating climate change, as well as preparing our city-state for its possible impact. Let me share just two strategic thrusts of our approach.
Investing in Sustainable Urban Development
First, we believe that investing in sustainable urban development is key to strengthening the resilience of our cities. As a small country with no natural resources, land or climatic conditions for the large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources, it is hard for Singapore to achieve net-zero emissions the same way bigger countries can pledge to do. However, we believe that we can still pioneer technological and policy solutions for sustainable development.
For example, we invest efforts in optimising and intensifying solar deployment by making use of rooftops and open spaces, such as reservoirs. By 2030, solar energy deployed will be five times that of today, or at least two gigawatt-peak, which is equivalent to powering more than 350,000 households a year.
Greening our built environment is one of the key strategies under the Singapore Green Plan 2030. The Building and Construction Authority launched our most stringent edition of the Singapore Green Building Masterplan earlier this year. It targets to accelerate our transition to a low-carbon Built Environment which we termed “80-80-80” in 2030 – to have 80% of buildings to be green, 80% of new developments to meet Super Low Energy performance standards, and for our best-in-class buildings to reach 80% energy efficiency improvement from 2005 levels.
Our sustainability efforts extend to public housing which provides homes for 80% of Singaporeans. The Housing and Development Board has introduced the Green Towns Programme, with initiatives focused on reducing energy consumption, recycling rainwater and cooling of towns through cool coatings and greenery intensification. Through these efforts, we will achieve a 15% reduction in 2020 energy consumption levels across all our towns by 2030.
To enhance the liveability of our environment, the OneMillionTrees (OMT) movement led by the National Parks Board saw thousands of Singaporeans stepping up to plant more than 200,000 trees over the past year. The increase in green spaces will lower our carbon emissions, as well as mitigate the urban heat island effect.
Innovating Urban Governance for Climate Actions
Adapting cities to climate change not only requires scientific knowledge, planning and technological solutions, it also calls for innovations in urban governance. Climate change is not an issue that government can tackle on its own. Hence, our second thrust involves working closely with our communities to create shared ownership and leverage on the whole-of-society’s ideas and energy.
One example is an ongoing project called “Building Community Resilience” by the Centre for Liveable Cities, where we piloted a participatory process to spur ground-up, citizen-initiated projects, such as having residents co-design and implement a green corridor in the neighbourhood to lower heat stress. Not only do such efforts contribute to climate change adaptation, they also help strengthen community resilience, by fostering a sense of agency amongst residents.
To encourage the co-creation of more sustainable solutions, a $50 million SG Eco Fund was launched last year. Thus far, 37 projects have been evaluated based on their environmental outcomes, community engagement and implementation, among other factors. Some of the projects initiated by the communities under the SG Eco Fund include workshop for upcycling damaged laptops and neighbourhood collection points for reusable bags and plastic packaging.
Singapore and Shanghai’s Collaboration in Urban Governance
Urban governance is one of the six focus areas under Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council (SSCCC). We hope it would create more collaboration opportunities in sustainable urban development among the public and private sectors, and the community.
Cities around the world are still grappling with the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even as we deal with the near-term challenges, we must keep our eyes on the future, and ensure we emerge from this global crisis stronger together. This conference provides a timely platform to share ideas for a pathway of green recovery and greater resilience for all cities.
We have all gained new insights from this inaugural conference. I would like to congratulate the organisers on the success of this World Cities Day and I wish everyone good health. Thank you.