Singapore stepping up efforts at mitigation of climate change

In 2020, Singapore introduced The Carbon Pricing Bill, their first major policy initiative to deal with climate change.  The bill means that all facilities producing 25,000 tonnes or more of greenhouse gas emissions per year will have to pay a carbon tax of $5/ tonne of greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2023.

The six greenhouse gases that will be covered under the carbon tax are:

1. carbon dioxide (CO2),

2. methane (CH4),

3. nitrous oxide (N2O),

4. hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs),

5. perfluorocarbons (PFCs),

6. sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).

Importantly, the system is given integrity by the mandated use of international standards for the measurement of GHG emissions. Moreover, these emissions must be independently verified. Both measurement and verification of emissions must be conducted using the ISO 14064 Standards for Greenhouse Gas Management.

Singapore has now expanded on its climate change ambition. It submitted its enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and Long-Term Low-Emissions Development Strategy (LEDS) document to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on March 31st. This document is an update to Singapore’s July 2015 climate pledge under the Paris Agreement.

Not only does Singapore’s enhanced NDC state an absolute emissions target to peak emissions at 65MtCO2e around 2030, it also expands the scope of the country’s pledge to include nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) as a seventh greenhouse gas (GHG) within their peak emissions ceiling. Singapore is among the first nations in the world to do so. Also, the granular insights of emissions from the ISO 14064 methodology is now driving intensified sectoral strategies to mitigate emissions in multiple sectors – Transport, Waste, Water and Energy to name a few.

“If your bucket is full of holes, you won’t carry a lot of water”

Progress on Climate Change has been seriously deficient – despite the world being focussed on the problem for decades. One reason for this is the lack of a broad based set of rules to measure and verify what is going on country by country. This is why the ISO 14064 Standards were developed: to be that standard and ultimately, the bed rock on which progress is built.

Read more about ISO 14064 Here 

Carbon Action will be delivering a series of the ISO 14064 course in Singapore and the region in conjunction with Sustinere Pte, based in Singapore.

This course consists of the following modules: