The fight for a just transition goes on
Dear friend,
Thank you to the more than 1,400 of you who turned up in the sweltering heat of Hong Lim Park to make your voices heard for climate justice! We could feel the amazing energy as you gamely participated in the activities, chatted with our community booth partners, and chanted loudly together with our host and speakers!
Special mention must go to our lovely volunteers who spent their free time on the weekends to help us out with the organisation of the rally; none of this would have been possible without you.
Yet, even as we bask in the post-rally glow, the fight for a just transition goes on. Amid worsening natural disasters and stalled global negotiations over climate policies, closer to home in our region, climate activists and local communities alike continue to bear the brunt of repression and policies aimed at a ‘just transition’, but in reality affecting those who contributed the least to the climate crisis. We’ve gone more into detail below about this, and it’s a reminder of the need to continue speaking up and taking action.
For a better world,
SG Climate Rally
The photos from our rally are up on our Facebook page! Below are just a few of the beautiful people (and pooches) that showed up:
And we’ve also got a great video commemorating the spirit and energy of all those who were there:
For more videos, you can check out our Tiktok account!
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Once again a huge thanks to our volunteer photographers Tim (@tampaxtim), Darren (@darrrrenA), Markus (@camaorastuff), Leon (@leonleonpo), and our videographers Evangelista (@evangelista_wan) and Felix (@_fvkg) for their time and effort!
Global News
🏗️The Rempang Eco-City, a new project announced in July by the Indonesian government on Rempang Island in the Riau Islands, has come under fire for its treatment of indigenous villagers. The project would be an economic and tourist project that would create up to 35,000 jobs, with Xinyi Glass, the world’s largest glass and solar panel manufacturer, investing $11.6 billion to build a factory there. However, the project would result in the displacement of 7,500 villagers from the island, and they have complained about not being consulted on this plan and facing intimidation efforts to get them to vacate their homes. In September, villagers clashed with local police who cracked down on protests on this issue.
On the latest episode of our Climate Kopitiam podcast, we spoke to representatives from two Indonesian NGOs, WALHI and Trend Asia, about the situation in Rempang, and how this shows a lack of climate justice in such projects, even as they play a role in the clean energy transition. We’ve also co-created an Instagram post on this issue together with Singapore Youth for Climate Action (SYCA), highlighting potential links to Singapore’s energy imports, and have submitted questions to our policymakers on whether they are aware of these links, and what steps will be taken to ensure clean energy imports fulfill climate justice principles.
🇻🇳Several Vietnamese climate activists have been detained in the past two years, with Ngo Thi To Nhien, executive director of independent think-tank Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition (Viet), the latest to be arrested on charges of “appropriating documents” on 20 September. A few days earlier, activist Hoang Thi Minh Hong was sentenced to three years in jail for tax evasion. These charges are seen to be politically motivated and part of a wider crackdown on civil society in Vietnam.
Local News
💸The government has released the eligibility criteria that will be used for carbon credits that firms can buy to offset up to 5 per cent of their taxable emissions. The criteria has taken reference from international standards such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia). A national registry will also be developed by NEA to track carbon credits that have been surrendered by the taxable facilities.
While the principles of the eligibility criteria are in line with international standards, we believe that a stringent oversight system can be introduced to guard against cheating and misrepresentation by projects which generate these carbon credits, based off the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles or the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)’s finalised Claims Code of Practice.
😬A recent survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found that less than half (43.7 per cent) of Singaporean respondents saw climate change as “a serious and immediate threat to the well-being of my country”. This is lower than the percentage of overall respondents in ASEAN (49.4 per cent) in 2023, and significantly lower than Singaporean respondents in 2021 (66.4 per cent). Researchers said this could be due to Singaporeans feeling that the government has been proactive in dealing with the climate crisis. This could also be due to other issues this year such as cost-of-living and geopolitical uncertainty.
🥵It has been a sweltering summer for most of the world. How will this impact our way of life? This CNA Insider documentary delves into the impact of heatwaves on our bodies, extreme weather patterns, working conditions and more in Asia:
🤥An in-depth investigative piece by The New Yorker details the problems in the carbon credits market, with a closer look into the history of South Pole, the world’s leading carbon credits seller, and how it is handling the Kariba project that has reportedly misrepresented the impact of its credits.
🤔Finally, even as governments may agree on the need for urgent climate action, politicians at the end of the day will need to pander to their voters–and climate action (especially if voters have to pay for it) can be a hard-sell. A commentary on The Straits Times outlines these quandaries, but proposes that the cost of climate inaction will be even greater down the road, and what is needed is for politicians to prioritise policies that will bring about a green transition and expand the notion of economic growth beyond GDP to include the impact on environment and human well-being.