Policymakers in Asia are not moving quickly enough to address climate change, but acceleration towards a low-carbon economy in the region is beginning to happen, said the UK’s special representative for climate change at its foreign and commonwealth office (FCO) this week.
Speaking in Singapore at a seminar on low-carbon growth on Friday, Ambassador John Ashton told Eco-Business that some countries are ahead of others in low-carbon investments and policies. South Korea is an example of one country where “the acceleration is beginning to happen,” he said.
“For a country with almost no natural resources and which imports 98 per cent of its energy, South Korea has been able to build an economic mirable on being able to develop intellectual property on a range of products and services.”
The country is investing two per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the infrastructure for a low-carbon economy – a move that is very impressive and will give the country a competitive advantage, he noted.
A low-carbon economy is one that has a minimal output of greenhouse gas emissions, considered by scientists to be the culprit of climate change. The British government, through its FCO, has been promoting the concept and working towards an international climate agreement through its network of offices across the globe.
Ambassador Ashton noted that this “low-carbon impulse” is more conflicted in China, where there are investments in low-carbon infrastructure such as renewables, but at the same time, the country is still making investments in high-carbon projects such as coal power plants.
“They’re contending forces at work as China keeps trying to grow its economy at the rate necessary to create jobs and move things forward. But I think the low-carbon impulse is getting stronger and exciting things are happening there,” he said.
Ambassador Ashton, who is also the founder and chief executive of environmental think-tank Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G), was in Singapore for meetings with government officials.
There are some interesting dilemmas that pose tricky questions for Singapore’s policymakers, he noted. The country has been successful in building industries in certain sectors by investing heavily in skills and research and development.
Opportunities exist for Singapore to build momentum in the sophisticated usage of energy and electricity, such as moving towards electric vehicles, he said. “But in other ways, Singapore is also quite strongly locked into the high-carbon economy,” he said. “It is an aviation and shipping hub, and these are industries that need to move a lot quicker than they have been.”
“One question for Singapore, which I cannot answer, is what role it wants to play as one of the leading centres in the world for aviation and shipping… in shaping the evolution of those industries, will they become part of the solution rather than part of the problem?”
He highlighted Singapore’s role in the liquid hydrocarbon industry: “It has a strong role in this sector, but what is that sector going to look like as we move out of liquid fuels and into carbon neutral transport solutions like electric vehicles?”
On electric vehicles, he noted that oil companies and auto makers are saying different things about the rate of penetration of electric vehicles. Governments have a crucial role to play in the development of this industry because infrastructure needs to be in place and this requires the efforts of policymakers.
“Looking at the geography of Singapore, it’s an obvious place to have electric cars as everything is concentrated here and you don’t have the problem of very long journeys,” he said.
As for whether the world will see a climate agreement inked at Durban during the UN climate summit due at the end of this year, Ambassador Ashton said he does not think a legally binding framework could materialise in time.
He called on governments to have the political will to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond its first cycle commitment, which expires in 2012.
“We need to do something about that. I expect there will be a hot debate in the EU about where we stand on this… But i think nobody can disagree with the notion that as our society becomes wealthier, they should be more willing to participate in that regime.”
