Singapore sets out plan to meet 2030 climate targets; energy imports, carbon capture among key efforts

For the first time, Singapore has publicly set out how it plans to cut emissions to meet its 2030 climate targets, with energy efficiency, carbon capture technology, and clean energy imports expected to be among the most effective measures.

The various efforts to cut emissions, called mitigation measures, were detailed in a report the Republic submitted to the United Nations in November 2024. The biennial transparency report details a country’s greenhouse gas inventory and progress made in reaching climate targets.

While the Republic has through its Singapore Green Plan 2030 – a sustainability road map – highlighted some of its plans to cut emissions, the latest report was the first to put a figure on the estimated amount of emissions that each measure could help reduce.

The report mentioned more than 10 mitigation measures, which include initiatives like electrifying vehicle fleets and greening buildings.

Of the various measures, three stood out for having the highest abatement potential, or potential to reduce Singapore’s greenhouse gas emissions, by 2030.

They include energy-efficiency initiatives for industries, capturing carbon, and importing green electricity.
 

In 2022, Singapore’s greenhouse gas emissions measured about 58,590 kilo tonnes. The top contributors to the country’s emissions are the power, industrial, and transportation sectors.

Singapore expects its planet-warming emissions to peak in 2028, before going down to about 60,000 kilo tonnes in 2030.

The mitigation measures highlighted in the report can help Singapore to reduce its emissions by nearly 12,000 kilo tonnes by 2030. This is about 20 per cent of the island-state’s total emissions in 2022.

Of the 12,000 kilo tonnes of emissions reductions, energy-efficiency initiatives could contribute up to 30 per cent.

The report estimated that such initiatives, including getting emissions-intensive industries like data centres or manufacturing plants to use more energy-saving machines, could reduce between 2,240 and 3,360 kilo tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (kt CO2 eq). CO2 eq is a measure of total greenhouse gases emitted.

Singapore has already been moving on this front. For example, minimum energy efficiency standards were introduced for industrial facilities in 2019 for chilled water coolers, the highest electricity-consuming system in the industry. Chilled water coolers help to keep buildings or industrial machines cool, preventing overheating.

The use of carbon capture, utilisation and storage technology is expected to contribute another 20 per cent or so to the total emissions reductions.

The report estimated that such technology, which sucks carbon dioxide from polluting sources and locks it away, can help to remove up to 2,500 kt CO2 eq by 2030.

Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is expected to continue to power more than 50 per cent of Singapore’s energy needs by 2035.

The National Climate Change Secretariat, which is one of the agencies that prepared the report, told The Straits Times that Singapore must work with other countries on carbon capture storage, since it lacks suitable underground sites for this purpose.
 

The Government has been working with an industrial consortium to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of cross-border carbon capture projects.

The consortium plans to develop a carbon capture and storage project that can permanently store 2,500 kilo tonnes of carbon a year by 2030, either in rock formations deep underground or under the seabed.

Among the countries Singapore is looking to collaborate with to lock up carbon or share best practices on the technology are Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan.

But the high cost of such technology could impair economic feasibility. Cost varies according to the industrial sector and capture methods, storage location, as well as the distance of transport and type, said Mr Alvin Ee, a research fellow at the NUS Energy Studies Institute (ESI).

Importing renewable electricity could be another significant contributor to Singapore’s emissions reductions, making up about 20 per cent of the expected total emissions reductions by 2030. The report had estimated its abatement potential to be about 2,340 kt CO₂ eq.

Singapore had earlier announced plans to import low-carbon electricity from its neighbours, with such imports expected to make up around a third of the Republic’s energy needs by 2035.

Singapore has inked deals with Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam to import 5.6 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity by 2035. Commercial operations under some of these import contracts could begin from 2028.
 

Mr Ho Hiang Kwee, an adjunct senior research fellow at the NUS Energy Studies Institute, said the report marks the first time that Singapore has detailed specific measures and their emissions reduction targets to meet its 2030 goals.

Many countries have set climate targets – particularly net zero goals by the mid-century or so – but they often lack concrete pathways on how to get there.

While there are many ways for countries to cut their emissions to meet their climate change goals under the 2016 Paris Agreement, each nation will have to tailor its own toolbox. 

For example, while some countries are able to deploy more renewable energy within their borders, space-constrained Singapore is unable to do so. This is why the Republic is ramping up efforts to enable it to import renewable-generated electricity from its neighbours.

However, Mr Ho noted that given Singapore’s longer-term aspirations to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the 2030 targets are not particularly ambitious. For example, he noted that while industrial energy efficiency appears to have the largest emissions-cutting potential in the report, the abatement target of up to 3,360 kilo tonnes is still less than 10 per cent of the roughly 38,000 kilo tonnes emitted by the sector in 2022.

Mr Ho said that Singapore, as a small, resource-constrained island state, faces many challenges in reducing its emissions, as the nation will need effective international cooperation and mature decarbonisation technologies to do so.

He added that there is also a need to accept that the costs of reducing emissions may be quite high, especially in the early years of installing new and complex solutions like electricity imports and carbon capture. Setting more ambitious climate targets hinges on scaling up decarbonisation technologies, among other factors.

By February 2025, countries have to submit new and more ambitious climate pledges to the UN, with those emission-reducing targets to be met by 2035.
 

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.