As Southeast Asia pursues plans to ramp up fossil fuel production to meet rising energy demand, a climate scientist has warned that it will be too hot to sustain human life in Singapore by the century’s end at current emission rates.
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Speaking at a sustainability event in Singapore on Tuesday, Professor Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, said that the world is on course to warm by 3°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This could lead to a 12°C rise in temperature in the city-state, because of the multiplying effect of planetary heating in urban areas.
“When you’re all driving your Audis back from this meeting, and you have a look at your temperature dial, you’ll see in mid-afternoon that it’s 34°C. In 80 years, it could be 46°C,” Horton said in a panel discussion at the event, which was sponsored by German carmaker Audi.
A recent report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre found that the surface temperatures in cities were 10-15°C higher than in rural areas, because of the heat island effect, which amplifies the effect of heatwaves and increases the risk of heat stress. A 2005 study by National University of Singapore found a 4°C difference between forested and urban areas in the city-state.
Professor Benjamin Horton (second from right) speaking at the Greentech Festival in Singapore. Image: Robin Hicks / Eco-Business
A temperature of 35°C is considered the upper limit for human survival without cooling. Singapore can expect more than 350 days of the year to exceed 35°C if emissions continue to rise on an aggressive fossil fuel-based trajectory, according to Singapore’s third climate change study, published earlier this year by the National Environment Agency.
“The Singaporean government – not an alarmist, angry scientist – has stated that if we don’t do anything about emissions, every day in this country will be beyond the limits of human existence. That is the reality of climate change,” Horton said.
A survey of climate scientists published in May found that 80 per cent expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels this century, with almost half predicting a 3°C warmer world by then.
A 3°C warmer planet would face protracted heat waves, crop failure, and increases in insect-borne diseases.
The abundance of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rose to 50 per cent above the pre-industrial era for the first time in 2022. Emissions reached a new high of 53 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023, with fossil fuel-dependent Asia producing 60 per cent of the world’s emissions.
Horton was speaking the day after Singapore announced a plan to build a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. The city-state is the world’s most fossil fuel-dependent country, relying on natural gas for 95 per cent of its energy. It is also one of the world’s biggest refiners of oil.
Fossil fuel production shows no sign of slowing in Southeast Asia, despite the International Energy Agency warning in 2021 that no new coal, oil or gas exploitation can occur if the world is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Some 138-gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants and 118 LNG terminals are being proposed or already being built in Southeast Asia – much to the alarm of civil society groups at the COP16 biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia this week, who pointed to the biodiversity and climate risks these installations will pose.
Climate warnings going unnoticed
Horton noted that while social media newsfeeds are currently filled with coverage of war in the Middle East and Ukraine, new research that forecasts the imminent collapse of a critical ocean current system is unlikely to gain much attention.
A preliminary study by Utrecht University, which Horton posted on LinkedIn on Monday, projects that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a circulation system that transports warm waters northward and cold waters southward, is 59 per cent likely to stop working by 2050.
Should the AMOC fail, temperatures in Europe would plunge, the Amazon rainforest would dry out, and coastal cities would experience extreme flooding, Horton said. “This is information that will affect every single one of you – the air that you breathe, the water that you drink and the food that you eat – but you won’t find it anywhere on social media.”
Horton also took aim at artificial intelligence (AI), which is one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing emissions sources as the region builds out new data centres to meet rising demand for AI-based computing.
“We don’t need AI. We know what the [climate] solutions are already. We need air, water and food,” Horton said, referring to climate-induced resource scarcity.
He also highlighted Google’s plans, announced this month, to build up to seven small nuclear reactors to meet the power demands of its AI services.
“We don’t need Google to think about how they’re going to balance their energy budget by building a nuclear power plant,” he said. In July, Google conceded that its emissions were 48 per cent higher in 2023 than in 2019, largely as a result of AI.
