Translated by Vicky Lam:
Singapore news – Union Morning Post (12 March 2012)
Our Country is “the Unhealthiest”??
Environmental Department: the Report is Not Objective Enough
Recently, two foreign organisations released their reports on the environmental indices which are unfavorable to Singapore. These reports pointed out that Singapore is “the unhealthiest country” in respect to the environment. This ranking has drawn the attention of the government. The government claimed that the report is biased against small countries with limited natural resources.
The first report is about the Eco2 index developed by Professor Rashid Sumaila at the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia, Canada. Professor Sumaila used the economic and environmental data from 1997 to 2007 to reflect the country’s economic and ecological security, and the rate of consumption of resources.
Among 150 countries in this study, Singapore ranked the lowest and is listed after Kuwait, Israwl, Korea and other countries. East Timor, Gabon, Bolivia, Angola and the Central African Republican Countries are listed in the top of the list.
After the UBC’s press release in the end of February, many international media including the Wall Street Journal used “Singapore: ‘the Unhealthiest Country’” as the title when reporting this news.
Ministry of Environment and Water Resources has studied this report and told us that Eco2 index used the data from the Global Footprint Network. The data is biased against import-dependent, land-scarce and densely populated countries. So, it cannot reflect the toughness of our country in the nature.
A government spokesman said “We are a city-state country. It would be more meaningful if we compared Singapore with other cities which also need import energy, food and water.”
On the other hand, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) will release the Asian Footprint Report in June. This report also pointed out that Singapore has the highest per capita carbon emissions in the Asian Pacific region.
Based on this report, the National Climate Change Secretariat under the Prime Minister’s Office said that there were limitations for using the concept of per capita for calculating the amount of carbon emissions. This method is prejudicial to small countries with low population. Also, it cannot reflect the particular situation in each country.
The spokesman of the Secretariat also said that the WWF has seriously distorted the fact as it referred Singapore as a bad example.
Secretariat also claimed that a more reasonable algorithm to Singapore when measuring carbon emission is to use the energy intensity. Energy intensity is calculated by dividing the carbon emissions by GDP. According to the data from the IEA, Singapore ranked number 123 among 137 countries.
Carbon dioxide is a major component of greenhouse gases and is considered as one of the culprits causing global warming. Oil refining and manufacturing sectors are the major contributors of carbon dioxide.
Singapore is the world’s major oil refining and bunkering center. However, it is still controversial for putting the carbon emissions into the account of oil-producing countries, importing countries or the end-use countries.
In a phone interview last week, Professor Sumaila, who wrote the first report, told us that he understood Singapore has limited natural resources as he has visited our country before. He said, “In fact, I was very surprised when I read the results. I realized that Singapore has put much effort in the works of protecting the environment and developing sustainability.” He also said that Singapore is the lowest in the list but many wealthy countries also have low ranking, for example, the top three largest economic countries including United States (ranked 103), China (ranked 106) and Japan (ranked 144). This is mainly caused by industrialization.
Professor Sumaila, who is major is Environmental Economics, also said that his Eco2 ranking just directly takes the average values of the environmental and economic performance. If sensitivity analysis, which is to identify the more influential factors from different factors and do the analysis again, was performed, then the ranking will be shifted. He also said, “In this report, we want to stress that economic performance is not equivalent to environmental sustainability.”
Local academics: Index has its limitations
Dr. Li Lizhu at Asian Sustainable Urban Development Research Center of National University of Singapore said that Eco2 is used to measure the ecological footprint of a country. As Singapore is a country with scarce natural resources, it would be disadvantageous for it when comparing with other resource-rich countries such as Canada, Australia and Argentina. She said, “It is inappropriate to compare city-state with big country.”
She also pointed out that the index does not include the efforts that a country has put into sustainability works. She mentioned that we should not just focus on ecological capital but we should also focus on how well a country can utilize its resources. Also, we should take the social progress and the impact of the economic development on the environment into account when calculating the index.
Dr. Matthias Roth, an associate professor of the National Department of Geography also pointed out that it was interesting to combine environmental and economic performances. However, he believes that Singapore should be compared with other big cities or city-state as it has no hinterland.
Professor Zeng Shaohua, director of the Nanyang Technological University Energy Research Institute (ERI@N) has pointed out that an environmental sustainability ranking was conducted in the World Economic Forum earlier on. The ranking of Singapore is also low. However, if we considered countries with small land area, high population density, lack of natural resources, has an export-oriented economies and other limitations, that ranking has excluded countries with an area of less than 5000 square kilometers (i.e. seven times bigger than the area of Singapore).
Despite the unfavorable ranking, the Environment and Water Resources Ministry said that Eco2 index reminded all of us to make more efforts to minimize wastage and to ensure our next generation would continue to enjoy the high quality of lives. National Climate Change Secretariat said, “Although we have limited resources, we try our best to become a more environmental friendly city.”