In Goldin’s TED talk (2009), he mentions that climate change is
one of the factors that had resulted from rapid globalization. Climate change
is the result of global warming that is caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs) which
are emitted from the human activities that are used to build the modern lives
of today. Majority of these GHGs were emitted from the buildings around us,
fossil fuels in transportation, industries and electricity generators. These
GHGs have the abilities to trap the heat around the atmosphere, which induced
the glaciers in the North and South Poles to melt and sea levels to rise. As
Singapore is a small and low-lying island that is surrounded by the sea, the
rise in sea level will have major effects on Singapore. According to National
Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) (2012), there was an average increased 3mm of
the sea level per year over the past 15years. Thus, while Singapore government
is cutting down the emission of GHGs to reduce the global warming by setting up
some policies to reduce carbon emission from transportation and building
sectors, but there are still a number of people refuse to follow the policies
that set by the Singapore government.
Singapore government has
been focusing on reduce the emission of GHGs from the transportation throughout
the years. According to the data of Singapore’s GHGs Emissions from NCCS
(n.d.), there are about 19% of CO2 emissions were contributed from
transport in year 2005. In order to reduce the emission of CO2, LTA
had set up some policies to encourage people to take public transport. First of
all, LTA managing the vehicle usage and traffic congestion by implementing the
Certificate of Entitlement (COE) and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) to
discourage people purchase a car. Next, LTA also improve and promote the public
transport in order to make the public transport be the first choice of mode of
transport for every people. Through these solutions, LTA had reduced the CO2
emission from the fossil fuels in transportation in an indirect way and the
NCCS is expecting to reduce the CO2 to 14.5% in 2020. Although the
Singapore government managed to reduce the CO2 by providing an efficient
transport system, there are still a number of people refuse to use the public
transport due to the reason of overcrowded on the MRT during peak hours. In my
opinion, LTA can try to shorten the current waiting time of the train from
about average 2miniutes to 30 seconds to increase the frequency of the train
during peak hours. On the other hand, LTA can also collaborate with MOM and MOE
to reduce the crowd of peak hours by rearranging the school and work release
time to spread the peak hours more evenly.
In short, Singapore government was made public transport as one of the
mode of transport for every Singaporean to reduce the CO2 emission
by the fossil fuels in transportations. Thus, every Singaporean should
appreciate what had the government done and follow the foot step of the
government to protect the environment.
Other than focuses on cutting down the
emission of GHGs from transportation, the Singapore government also has been
focusing on reduce the emission of GHGs from buildings. Based on the data from
NCCS (n.d.), the building sector emitted about 16% of CO2 in 2005.
To reduce GHGs emission from the building, the Building and Construction
Authority (BCA) implemented the BCA Green Mark Scheme in 2005 to raise the
awareness of sustainability as well as to encourage the developers to develop
more environmental-friendly buildings in Singapore. The Ministry of National
Development (MND) provided 20 million dollars for this Green Mark, while BCA
also provided some new grants to attract the developers to build or upgrade
more green buildings. Other than the incentive, the National Environment Agency
(NEA) launched the Energy Efficiency National Partnership (EENP) programme to
encourage the private sectors to maximize the energy efficiency to reduce the
carbon emissions. With these policies, the NCCS is expecting to cut down the CO2
emission from 16% in 2005 to 13.8% in 2020. Through these effective
policies, I agreed with the expectation of NCCS that the Singapore government
could achieve their goal by 2020, but from my point of view, the government
could improve their policies by providing extra cash incentive as a motivation
for the designers to produce new creative ideas in their designs.
In conclusion, the global warming issue is
getting more serious and it will have major effects on Singapore. Throughout
the years, Singapore government had set up many policies to reduce the carbon
emissions from the transportation and building sectors. Thus, this is the time
for every Singaporean to work with the government to protect our environment by
taking a few small steps toward energy conservation. In this way, we could have
an immeasurable effect!
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Reference
Building
and Construction Authority (n.d.), Code on environmental sustainability measures for existing buildings
1st edition. Retrieved March 8, 2014, from
Goldin,
I. (2009). Navigating our global future. Retrieved from
National
Climate Change Secretariat (2012), Impact of climate change on Singapore, Retrieved March 8, 2014, from
National
Climate Change Secretariat (2012), Projecting Singapore’s greenhouse gas emissions, Retrieved
March 1, 2014, from
National
Climate Change Secretariat (2012), Sectoral measures to reduce emission (up to 2020). Retrieved March 8, 2014, from
National
Climate Change Secretariat (n.d.), Singapore’s national climate change strategy_chapter 3:
mitigation of greenhouse gas emission,
Retrieved March 8, 2014, from
National Geographic Society (1996-2014). Causes of
global warming. Retrieved March 1, 2014, from
National
Geographic Society (1996-2014). Global warming solutions,
Retrieved March 1, 2014, from
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