In the U.S., government leaders have seemingly abandoned forward thinking messaging on climate change. Traveling to Singapore for Ecosperity, the closest thing the country has to a climate week, felt like going back in time. Business and finance leaders spoke vocally about their investments in emissions reduction, government officials touted climate policy efforts, and scientists urged action to prevent the worst effects of rising global temperatures.
The war in the Gulf “makes the case for renewable energy even stronger, not just as a climate solution, but as a pathway to greater energy security, resilience, and long-term strategic competitiveness,” Dilhan Pillay, the CEO of Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, told Ecosperity attendees.
Singapore is an important climate and energy economy case study for a long list of reasons. It’s one of the world’s biggest and most significant energy trading hubs while also producing very little of its own energy. It relies on imported goods, including food, a vulnerability especially worrying in the face of climate extremes. And it’s keen to be a data center hub, though under strict conditions that protect it from some of the externalities that have led to a backlash elsewhere.
At the conference, I met with investors and financiers at the leading edge of the financial innovation necessary to accelerate decarbonization. That includes an important focus on the role of carbon markets. Singapore has launched a full-throated effort to establish rules of the road to allow funding for carbon offsets to back clean energy and other climate-related projects. And Singapore has sought to play a key role in developing and scaling blended finance, which combines public and private money to make projects go further and reduce risk for investors. Temasek is a key leader in the region focused on seeded platforms to invest in renewable projects in Southeast Asia using this approach. The goal is to make a whole tranche of “marginally bankable” projects financeable.
The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has changed the economics and provided a tailwind to these efforts. The premium that countries in the region are willing to pay to ensure energy security has increased overnight—and so has the viability of clean technologies. “Energy security and climate action are no longer separate. They have converged,” said Ravi Menon, Singapore’s ambassador for climate action. “But that convergence is very fragile.”
But the signal in the noise is one of a persistent evolution in energy systems driven by necessity. It’s easy to be myopic sitting in the U.S. or Europe as politics complicate energy markets. But as Singapore reminds us: structural change is coming, even if it’s slower.
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