Pitch
Climate change is inevitable, and beyond any one nation's control. So, if we can't beat it, we will leverage on changes to maximise benefits
Description
Make life easier/more difficult for Singapore?
Easier
Describe the change
Technology can help digitize and virtualize many aspects of life, but it can't shift our countries' physical location: geography is permanent in that sense. In many ways, so is climate change. By 2030, temperatures will continue to rise, freshwater will decrease, sea levels will increase, arable land will drop. So, why not turn this potential adversity into an opportunity?
For example, let's use rising temperatures to explain this. Rising temperatures are a pain to deal with, especially with Singaporean humidity. But this also presents ample opportunity to leverage on solar power on our island to use for energy consumption and cooling. There are multiple breakthroughs in solar, with increased efficiency in capture, storage, conversion and distribution tech and materials. By 2030, solar energy is estimated to be 40-50% cheaper than today.
Similarly, think leveraging on cheaper and more efficient desalination, vertical farming, and floating island cities. Turn challenges into opportunity.
How will this change impact Smart Nation Singapore in 2030?
Green tech will be an essential foundation for the Smart Nation in 2030. City masterplan designing will include strategies to adapt current buildings, objects, transport infrastructure and other spaces into green monsters (but in a good way). Reliance on non-renewable energy sources will reduce to 20-25% of overall consumption. The cost savings in electricity will instead be re-directed to a green tax, which will be used to fund further green developments and maintain current ones.
The hope here is that, as we rely more on our environment to provide for us, we also learn to appreciate it better. In the long term, this helps to mitigate the climate change we have caused in the first place (which ironically, we are now leveraging on). Of course, this would require other cities to follow in the footsteps of the Smart Nation for it to have any chance of succeeding at a global level.
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