Singapore mulls advancing net zero target to 2050

Singapore is considering setting a 2050 target for achieving net zero emissions and revising its 2030 emissions goal in line with this more ambitious decarbonisation target.

Singapore's National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) has invited public feedback on the proposed changes and its decarbonization policy through a government website until 26 September.

The city-state had in its 2022 budget agreed to formally update its targets before the end of this year and announced plans to achieve net zero emissions "by or around mid-century". Singapore had in its nationally determined contribution (NDC) submitted to the UN in 2020 committed to peak its emissions at around 65mn t of CO2 equivalent by 2030 and achieve net zero only "as soon as viable in the second half of the century".

But the country is under pressure to update its targets, which have been deemed too low to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit climate change to well below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C. Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak before 2025 to keep these targets within reach, according to the latest working group report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If all countries follow Singapore's earlier approach, warming would instead exceed 4°C by the end of the century, independent research group Climate Action Tracker has warned.

Recent international developments have made Singapore confident that it can move to net zero earlier, despite geographical constraints it faces to expanding renewables, the NCCS said. These developments include the finalising of the Paris climate agreement's Article 6 rulebook for international carbon markets and increasing net zero commitments from other countries and companies, which the Singapore government believes will lead to earlier maturation of decarbonisation technologies.

Article 6 allows countries to voluntarily transfer carbon credits earned from the reduction of GHG emissions between them to help each other meet their climate targets. Singapore announced last month that companies would be allowed to use voluntary carbon credits from the Verra and Gold Standard registries to offset up to 5pc of their taxable emissions, in an effort to put Article 6 into practice.

By Lauren Moffitt