Singapore

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Overview

Despite its high economic capacity, Singapore has a very weak climate target, which is it is likely to over-achieve without implementing any additional policies, so it needs to substantially strengthen its target to reflect its high economic capacity. While it has considerably expanded its renewable energy capacity, Singapore’s main focus for climate mitigation is now on energy efficiency programmes. However, this will not compensate for the increasing energy demand from the industry and buildings sectors, which will result in rising emissions.

Singapore’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) emissions target of a 36% reduction of emissions intensity below 2005 levels by 2030 is very weak compared to currently implemented policies, which, according to our analysis, will lead to emissions in 2030 of 60 MtCO2e, or a 123% increase above 1994 levels. Even without any additional policies, Singapore will overachieve its NDC target and reach a reduction of more than 40% in 2030. We rate Singapore’s NDC 2030 target “Highly insufficient..”

The most recent development in Singapore´s mitigation strategy is the Government’s plan to implement a carbon tax from 2019. A carbon tax, targeting upstream emissions, should encourage more renewable energy in place of fossil fuel energy by adding a price for the emitted carbon. The CAT has not quantified the potential mitigation impact of this carbon tax due to insufficient details on this policy.

Singapore’s implemented mitigation policies have focused on replacing oil in the electricity generation sector for less carbon intensive fossil fuels, resulting in natural gas representing over 96% of the energy mix in 2016. To diversify its energy mix, Singapore has significantly expanded its solar energy capacity in recent years, going from 3 MW of installed Solar-PV capacity in 2014 to over 46 MW in 2015 (Energy Market Authority, 2017). However, Singapore’s energy mix is likely to remain very uniform in the future, resulting in a prolonged dependence on fossil-fuels.

Outside the power generation sector, Singapore’s mitigation efforts almost exclusively consist of measures aimed at further improving energy-efficiency through programmes like Green Mark standards for buildings, public transport, fuel efficiency standards, home appliance efficiency standards, industrial energy efficiency, and waste management.