NEW DELHI – Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for partners to collaborate on a finance platform that blends private and public funds to tackle climate change, as he addressed the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in New Delhi on Saturday.
He noted that more private funds are needed to combat the “existential” threat of climate change, with trillions of dollars of annual investments required for the world to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
The so-called blended finance platform being explored by Singapore will pull together and scale up financing from the public, private and philanthropic sectors to fund green investments and support high-carbon companies implementing long-term changes to reduce their emissions.
“Governments alone cannot do all of this,” said PM Lee, as he spoke at the One Earth session on the first of the two-day summit.
The One Earth session, which was chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed accelerating climate action via mitigation measures and clean energy transition, comes after United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the G-20 leaders had the power to reset a climate crisis that is “spinning out of control”.
The European Union climate monitor has also said that 2023 is likely to be the hottest year in human history.
The G-20 members, comprising 19 major and emerging economies and the European Union, account for around 85 per cent of global emissions, making this forum a crucial one for pushing cooperation on climate change efforts.
However, analysts say divided opinions on the Ukraine war as well as geopolitical tensions between member countries such as the United States, China, Russia and India risk derailing these efforts.
On Saturday, the G-20 leaders’ declaration on climate change made some progress. The grouping, which includes fossil fuel producers Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia and coal-dependent nations India and South Africa, pledged to triple renewable energy sources by 2030 but committed only to a “phasedown” of coal “in line with national circumstances”.
The outcome “dramatically increases the odds that a global goal to triple renewables can be agreed at COP28 in December”, said Mr Aditya Lolla, Asia programme lead at London-based energy think-tank Embers, referring to the crucial climate talks in the United Arab Emirates.
Singapore is not a member of the G-20 but is regularly invited to take part in its meetings. The Republic is the convener of the Global Governance Group, an informal grouping of 30 small and medium-sized members of the United Nations.
PM Lee is attending the annual forum at the invitation of Mr Modi on behalf of India, which holds the rotating G-20 presidency for 2023.
In his speech, PM Lee also urged leaders of the G-20 countries to lead collaborations on new technologies, new financing models and new markets to combat the threat of climate change.
He said global cooperation was needed in areas such as forming reliable and resilient supply chains to deploy hydrogen energy, creating a conducive environment for decarbonisation investments and smoothening climate transitions through high-integrity carbon markets.
He also stressed that Singapore supports multilateral approaches towards mitigation goals, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches.
“Singapore is a low-lying, alternative-energy disadvantaged island-state. We therefore appreciate the inherent challenges in climate transitions. However, we believe that new technologies, new financing models and new markets offer us hope,” said PM Lee.
