Sources of Carbon Emissions in Singapore

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources (a) what is the carbon footprint generated by the waste incineration process in Singapore; and (b) whether measures such as carbon capture and sequestration or carbonation of bottom ash are in place or being considered to reduce this.

Thank you. Singapore generated 52.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2017. The buildings and household sectors contributed around 19% of our total GHG emissions, of which a sizeable portion would have been for air-conditioning. The land transport sector contributed around 14%, and the incineration of municipal solid waste at waste-to-energy plants contributed around 3% of our total GHG emissions.

Singapore is fully committed to reducing our emissions under our Paris Agreement pledge. We have put in place a comprehensive suite of measures to reduce our emissions across all sectors. These measures are complemented by the economy-wide carbon tax which came into effect this year.

Under the Building Control Regulations, all new buildings and buildings undergoing major retrofitting are required to achieve a minimum sustainability standard. BCA’s Green Mark Scheme also encourages building owners and developers to achieve higher energy efficiency, such as by reducing a building's cooling demand and adopting more efficient cooling systems. NEA has also put in place the Mandatory Energy Labelling Scheme (MELS) to encourage consumers to purchase more energy-efficient household air-conditioners, and introduced the Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) to phase out the less efficient appliances from the market.

In the transport sector, we aim to make public transport the preferred mode of travel in Singapore and to encourage active mobility such as walking and cycling. By 2040, we target for nine in 10 peak period journeys to be taken using public, active and shared modes of transport, and for these journeys to be completed within 45 minutes. We have already capped the vehicle population in Singapore at zero growth, except for commercial vehicles. We also encourage the adoption of cleaner vehicles including electric vehicles, and are working with the industry to develop infrastructure for our public, shared and private transport vehicles.

We are diverting waste away from incineration by focusing on efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Under the Zero Waste Masterplan launched in August, we outlined how Singapore is adopting a circular economy approach to waste management, where resources are kept in use for as long as possible. The Resource Sustainability Act that was recently enacted gives legislative effect to the regulatory framework that we will put in place to better manage the three priority waste streams of electrical and electronic waste, or e-waste, packaging waste including plastics, and food waste. These measures will contribute not only to reducing carbon emissions and closing the resource loop for these key waste streams, but will also extend the lifespan of our only landfill at Semakau.

We are closely monitoring global developments in carbon capture and sequestration. There are no plans to incorporate these technologies into our current waste management infrastructure at this moment. However, we will continue to study the feasibility of such technology, taking into consideration factors such as the maturity of the technology, and the costs and benefits of applying it to the Singapore context.

Tackling climate change requires a whole-of-nation approach. Individuals also play a key role in our climate mitigation efforts. We can all choose to make climate-friendly choices and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, such as setting the air-conditioner temperature at 25 degrees Celsius, practising the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, and taking public transport.

Mr Speaker, may I first declare that I work in the utilities industry. I thank the Senior Minister of State for her reply. I have three supplementary questions.

The first question is on air-conditioning. Given that air-conditioning that is provided by large-scale district cooling has shown to reduce electricity consumption by more than 30%, are there any plans by the Government to encourage more of such district cooling in Singapore?

The second question relates to electric vehicles. Given that it is always a chicken-and-egg problem between having charging points and buying and using electric vehicles, does the Government have any plans to open more public parking spaces for public charging? Not private charging for the customers of a particular company, but public charging, so as to incentivise more car owners to switch electric vehicles.

My third question relates to waste incineration. There are presently technologies such as gasification that does not have harmful emissions and that are compact enough and modular enough to be deployed locally at our HDB estates. Gasification technology can treat food waste and general waste, and has shown to be very clean. Does the Government have any plans to introduce such gasification technology in our HDB estates?

I thank the Member for his supplementary questions. Firstly, with regards to the use of district cooling, indeed, we support the use of district cooling to reduce energy consumption for buildings at the systems level. In fact, there are already district cooling projects at One Raffles Quay as well as the Marina Bay area. We have found that for the Marina Bay area scheme, there was about a 40% reduction in energy consumption. We are have plans to introduce district cooling in the new Jurong Lake District. These are all greenfield sites and it is easier to implement such a technology there. For brownfield sites, there will be challenges because there are already existing buildings there that have put in place their systems. But we are studying this further.

With regards to electric vehicles, indeed, we encourage the adoption of cleaner energy vehicles, whether it is electric or hybrid, through the Vehicles Emissions Scheme, where we incentivise the purchase of cleaner energy vehicles. As regards the Member's request for public charging at parking spaces, we will bring his suggestion to MOT and LTA to consider.

Regarding gasification technology, as the Member knows, all household waste is currently incinerated at our four waste-to-energy incineration plants, it is mass incineration technology either at Woodlands or Tuas. We are studying the feasibility of small-scale waste treatment including utilising gasification technology. But in studying this, we will have to take into account factors such as the overall efficiency of waste treatment at the national level, carbon footprint savings from reduced refuse truck traffic using smaller scale gasification plants, for instance, safety to residents as well as nuisance buffer required for such facilities especially if we are talking about siting these within HDB estates, and also, any off-take or by-products at the local level.

Just to share that under NEA regulatory sandbox, the SP Group is conducting a gasification pilot at Gardens by the Bay (GBB). There, the waste collected from GBB is converted to heat as well as a solid by-product that has got carbon in it. We will monitor the outcome of this pilot and assess the feasibility of using such technology for smaller scale waste treatment facilities.

I thank the Senior Minister of State for her detailed answer. Just one supplementary question. Is the Government looking into battery swapping, as opposed to battery charging for electric vehicles? Swapping could potentially be an efficient alternative, given that space is at a premium and so on and so forth? So, is that being looked into?

We are studying the infrastructure as well as various measures to encourage the adoption of cleaner energy vehicles, including electric vehicles. This is something that we can look into.

The Senior Minister of State mentioned that we are only monitoring the technology of carbon capture. Could I ask whether MEWR is doing a feasibility study of carbon capture as part of our efforts to mitigate climate change?

When we talk about Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage or CCUS, it is really about capturing the carbon which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, converting it into something useful or storing it safely. So, indeed, National Climate Change Secretariat has commissioned a study on CCUS technologies, including carbonisation that Mr Leon Perera asked about, to determine the challenges as well as the opportunities of such technology and also to recommend the next steps.

One of the issues, for instance, that we would have to consider is not just economic viability and feasibility, but also whether they meet certain technical requirements, such as environmental standards that have to be met, especially when two-thirds of Singapore is a water catchment area.

These are some areas that we will study. We will continue to monitor developments in these technologies. We are working with the industry as well as with the R&D sector to look further into the technology.