Join Us On The Journey of Activism In Crisis
Dear friend,
It's been weeks since the results of our General Election (GE) 2020. You may be feeling joyous,disappointed, or frustrated with the results, but stay hopeful as we strive to work towards a better future for Singapore and our future generations. On this note, we sincerely thank you for supporting our GE initiatives! We really appreciate your engagement in our Greenwatch campaign, as well as our social media content, and we hope that we have encouraged you to keep bringing climate action into your daily conversations. We see that the importance of climate action has been recognised by our political candidates, as mentioned in their party manifestos and campaigns. We hope to work closely with our politicians to push for more ambitious climate action in Singapore.
Before the Polling Day, we had an IG takeover series on Instagram, in collaboration with the following speakers:
We hope that you have enjoyed the series! These speakers have presented in-depth descriptions and explanations of various issues in Singapore. They have also answered questions with regards to these issues and related policies. If you have missed the IG stories, fret not because we have already put them in our highlights on our IG page! Please keep looking forward to our collaborations with other amazing individuals and organisations working hard in civil society!
For a better world,
W H A T ' S N E W ?
ACTIVISM IN CRISIS VIRTUAL FESTIVAL
We are proud to launch Activism In Crisis in partnership with Speak For Climate, Your Head Lah! Magazine, Foodscape Collective and many other individuals from the civil society and the environmental space!
Activism In Crisis is a virtual festival running from 3 August to 23 August and aims to build stronger links between environmental groups and social justice activists to develop practices that will facilitate meaningful structural change in our socio-political climate.
Participants will have access to our Slack channels to interact with module speakers and each other. Our modules will be held as webinars over Zoom. Learn more about our festival timeline and modules here and sign up for your festival pass today!
S G C R W R I T E S . . .
GREENWATCH: OPEN LETTER TO POLITICAL PARTIES
Dear Political Parties,
Firstly, congratulations are in order for the completion of a difficult GE 2020. We congratulate parties that did not win seats for a nonetheless clean and well-fought campaign. We congratulate the Workers Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP) for their hard-earned Member of Parliament (MP) and Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) seats. We congratulate the People’s Action Party (PAP) for the mandate they have received to form the next government.
Prior to the election, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the COVID-19 health and economic crisis is "the crisis of a generation". For many in Singapore, and around the world, the climate crisis will be just as harmful, if not more.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 Special Report on Global Warming found that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is necessary to "reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well being". Impacts like rising sea levels, devastating droughts and increased proliferation of vector-borne diseases (like dengue) are already hurting and will continue to hurt Singapore.
The scientific consensus is that achieving 1.5 degrees would require halving carbon emissions by 2030, and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This year, Singapore committed only to halve carbon emissions by 2050.
During this election campaign, Greenwatch suggested policy proposals with our climate policy brief. We offered to work with political parties on building stronger climate policies. Ultimately, we evaluated each political party's response to the climate crisis. While some parties scored marginally better than others, all parties' response to the climate crisis were insufficient and do not commensurate with its impact on Singapore.
With Neighbourhood Greenwatch, Singaporeans and voters raised climate policy issues directly to their candidates in online rallies, through personal communications, and during the limited face-to-face interactions that were available. Besides current voters, many followers of the Greenwatch campaign are young people, aged 17-21. They could not vote in this election, but they will be voting in the next one. You have seen our faces, read our messages, and heard our voices. You know what our expectations are.
For too long, the environment has been seen as a peripheral issue, not serious enough to warrant concerted policy efforts. Prior to the election, Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli suggested that "everyone who complains... about the petrochemical industry; don't use your handphone, don't go around transported with all these fuels that you complain about".
We entreat officeholders to no longer engage in such characterisations: nobody is suggesting an immediate ceasure of industrial activity, but environmentalists and the Minister recognise that ‘business-as-usual’ is untenable, and so the alternative lies somewhere reasonably in between. Public discourse is necessary to decide what that alternative is, and we should certainly support a robust and serious discussion on this significant issue.
But the climate crisis has often been treated as though it is insignificant; kicked down the road rather than dealt with; unimportant when compared to 'bread and butter issues’. This could not be further from the truth. For Greenwatch, and for voters, the climate crisis is about our bread, and our butter; our homes, and our jobs; our families, and our children; our present, and our future. We will take climate action seriously, and we will be voting like it.
Sincerely Yours,
Greenwatch
C L I M A T E N E W S
THE MONTHLY ROUND-UP
With more investors recognising the reality of oil reserves becoming stranded assets, coupled with the temporary effects of the low demand driven by the coronavirus and global recession, Big Oil company majors are faced with the large-scale devaluation of their business operations. As a result, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP are cutting the value of its oil and gas assets, a wake-up call for the potential sunset industry. As “fundamental change (hits) the entire oil and gas sector,” write-downs by Big Oil will only balloon in size, spurring on the transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, a major step in driving down carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, in Arctic Siberia, a record heatwave of more than 5 degrees celsius is stoking some of the worst wildfires in the region. The Arctic is getting colder and drier, making conditions ideal for a wildfire to ravage the land. According to scientists, the wildfires in the Arctic circle are contributing to the vicious cycle: burning peatlands are releasing carbon stored there for millennia and leaving soot deposits on snow and ice, reducing their ability to reflect the sun’s heat. While this calamity might seem distant as the horizon, people need to connect the dots that this is nature’s warning cry for what might be yet to come.
The Nova Scotia government in Canada has lost a lawsuit over the province’s “systemic, chronic failure” to uphold its 1998 Endangered Species Act, as ruled by the judge. As the first time its Endangered Species Act has ever been the subject of legal action, it sets several major legal precedents to pave the way for greater strides towards regional conservation. This has shown “these individual citizens … and these non-advocacy groups, that (legal action) isn’t such a bad thing. It’s legitimate for (them) to request the assistance of the courts to uphold the rule of law,” said lawyer Janie Simpson. Though seemingly extreme, wielding the powers of the law against the shortcomings of the authorities can lay the groundwork for concrete change against environmental degradation.
It is heartening to hear that as of 21st July, tech giant Apple commits to achieving 100% carbon neutrality for its supply chain and products by 2030, 20 years sooner than IPCC targets. Apple is focusing on assembling its products with recycled and renewable materials, transitioning to renewable energy and funding reforestation and conservation projects to balance the remaining carbon emissions, among other efforts. It is definitely a “generational opportunity” and “a step in the right direction, if they make good on it”. However, Apple will have to engage in deep decarbonization efforts and not just shallow carbon offsetting projects to keep to its pledge. Apple’s investment into the future of our planet will hopefully put pressure on other big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft to deviate from investing in big oil and fossil fuel companies and using their influence to lobby governments to increase and adhere to their commitments in the Paris Climate Agreement instead.
S G C R C O N T R I B U T I O N S
A POEM BY SAMUEL
We will remember
We will remember our loved ones that passed,
the rallies they've been to, the people they've cast.
Feel the jostle of the crowd, the heated conviction found
in sound. The fateful
meeting on a walkabout - now
lost in a moment.
Eyes watery, and the heart
sizzles. It's a pan of Char Kway Teow;
sauce just added.
Momentary bliss, with the rise and fall of
flags. Cheers in the air, amoretti manifested, adventure
revolutionaire - change must be here.
Change in the (k)now. To go
back fifty-five years... was this what it felt like?
Uncharted waters shifting into
view, your flags shall be raised,
as sails of a new dawn, and the wind
spirals high, high, high
We will remember what they did:
The words, the promises, the things they slid.
Sometimes we forget, that
in the flurry of faces - forgotten -
and causes - forsaken -,
the victor was chosen from the start;
the people nowhere close to heart.
But our heart still sings a very merry tune,
charmed by the movement of something new.
It’s in the trees, in our skies, or so we wish,
for the extraction and oppression
that it shall banish.
We will remember all those that have come before.
The battles they have fought, their words sealed in lore.
The pledge of loyalty, starts from young,
votes seeded on what's unsung,
with fears, anxieties and grief buried as one.
Every five years, a hard rain sparks an ember.
And from the deserts we shall spring,
from the deserts we will remember.
To end off this month's newsletter, here's a meme and caption that perfectly sum up what individuals can do to fight the climate crisis, with credits to @gogreensavegreen on Instagram.
Caption: ….You can make Individual environmentally conscious decisions AND participate in the fight against climate change on a broader scale. You don’t have to pick. And when you make individual choices, you have to think bigger than yourself. Is not just you. You are an individual participating in a collective movement. Individuals collectively make change. Of course no singular person can stop climate change- no one is arguing that. It’s about joining a movement made up of millions and millions of people around the world who CAN change the world.
Be well and see you in August!