News

S’pore To Spend $100 Billion To Protect Against Rising Sea Level

Boon Hun

2019-08-19 , 11:00 am

The buzz word of governments around the world isn’t the Hong Kong protests, nor is it the US-China trade war.

It’s something even worse: climate change and the destruction of everything we know.

Temperature is rising and, this means?

Cute polar bears dying, ice in the north pole melting and, most importantly, rising sea levels.

S’pore At Risk

Not only is Singapore a small country with its people packed like sardines, but about 30 per cent of our land also lies below mean sea level.

In other words, if the sea level was to rise, our livable space would be reduced from 721.5 km² to 505.05 km².

For 6.9 million people, that’s already a stretch. For the white paper of 10 million people? Stretch is an understatement.

If you think property prices are high now, wait till then.

Preventive Measures

And so, the government is fully committed to three ways of preventing the disaster:

Understand climate change
Mitigate climate change
Adapt to climate change

Humans are, after all, creatures of adaptability and it is, once more, the factor that the government is banging on to bring us through the crisis.

1. Understanding

Singapore has set up a Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) back in 2013.

The centre aims to understand the effects of climate change and associated weather systems will affect Singapore and its surrounding region.

And they found out that because of our location to the equator, we’re more vulnerable to climate change than what is touted globally.

2. Mitigating

Second step: policies.

Carbon emission is a huge factor of climate change, and Singapore is looking to reduce the island’s carbon emission by 36% from 2005 levels.

They hope to stabilise emissions by the year 2030.

One policy enacted is the carbon tax:

30 to 40 of the biggest local carbon emitters are taxed S$5 per tonne of greenhouse gases emitted until 2023.
Beyond that, the tax will be increased to the range of S$10 to S$15 per tonne.

Individual Efforts

The government is also seeking individuals’ help to do their part for the environment by practising the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Green organisations are also doing their part to help with initiatives like the Plastic Bottle For Food Vouchers campaign organised by WWF-Singapore and Tiong Bahru Market.

3. Adapting

And finally, adapting.

New buildings in Singapore are built 4-metres above sea level. Important installations like Changi Airport and ports are built 5-metres above sea level.

PUB is building a new pump house opposite Marina Barrage.

The pump house will help to pump water during heavy rains or high tides out of Marina reservoir into the sea.

The government is also looking at polders to protect Singapore.

A Dutch concept, what a polder does is to build a wall around low-lying land against the sea.

Water is then pumped out into the sea from behind the wall.

This will, for one, create more livable space, and two, protect low-lying areas at the same time.

They are now building a small polder around Pulau Tekong.

If it works, it will be implemented for the mainland.

Building More Barrages

An alternative solution is to reclaim a series of off-shore islands from Marina East to Changi.

Then connect the islands with barrages to convert the area within into a freshwater reservoir.

Cost

But one thing for sure, the more powerful the enemy is, the costlier it’ll be to fight them.

And what’s more powerful than Mother Nature who can end us with some tears, stomping and sneezes?

It was revealed that the cost of implementing such structures might run up to $100 billion or more.

Although one good thing about climate change is that we have a longer time to deal with it as well, which was why he proposed a 50-100-year plan.