Summary Reader Response Draft 2: "Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action"

 In the recent news release, “Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action”, Sharma (2020) addressed the world’s efforts to combat climate change during a global Climate Ambition Summit co-hosted by the United Kingdom to discuss a strategy for carbon neutrality. Sharma stated during the summit, 45 nationally determined contributions (NDC) and 24 net-zero commitments have been announced by leaders worldwide to reduce the impacts of climate change. Additionally, the British government withdrew its monetary support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas. He also mentioned the United Kingdom’s (UK) and Singapore’s government exchange on educating each other regarding grid decarbonization. He claimed that Singapore plays a vital role in supporting regional energy transitions, keen on imparting its knowledge for a sustainable planet. Thus, he believes that contribution is not an individual effort, and it is proven by the existing pandemic to work together and achieve success. Personally, I agree with Sharma that Singapore has a key role to impart their knowledge, especially on its research on alternative fuels in the maritime community, electric taxis and adaptation to fossil fuels to result significant reductions in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

To start off, “90% of world trade is by sea…accounts for between 2% and 3% of global GHG emissions” (Jones, 2020). As the busiest trading port globally, I believe Singapore’s outlook on alternatives to replace fossil fuels in the port industry can greatly affect the world’s GHG emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) aims to facilitate the growth of fuel substitutes like green hydrogen in hope to achieve the proposed 50% reductions in GHG emissions by 2050. Singapore, having the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering hub globally, was ready to research on zero-emission fuels like hydrogen through its collaboration with Japan. I think the research on hydrogen is the right step to take as it is proven that combustion of hydrogen does not release any carbons into the atmosphere. If the research goes well, I feel that Singapore could share their knowledge regarding hydrogen as an alternative fuel to other countries and reduce GHG emissions together in the maritime sector.

Secondly, I think that Singapore’s introduction of the world’s first ever electric taxi, EVA, could be a possible game changer to reduce global emissions. Cars are undoubtedly the most used vehicle for transportation worldwide and contributes majorly in GHG emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels. Electric cars like EVA do not emit GHG and displays high efficiency with its quick rechargeability. Singapore developed a fast-charging battery for EVA to travel 200 kilometres with a mere 15-minute charge. Considering the distance, I propose that it could even be incorporated in larger countries like United States. Hence, I think Singapore should educate their research of EVA internationally to minimize GHG emitted from cars.

Lastly, I feel that fossil fuels will not be eliminated anytime soon, which makes adaptation technologies crucial. Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Chevron’s Keppel Data Centres and Singapore combine their efforts to stimulate the buildout of Carbon Capture Utilization & Sequestration (CCUS) system. This system “utilize cryogens, membranes and hydrogen” to remove and transfer carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial processes into geological storage (Mary, 2020). Also, NUS researchers have created a compound that extracts CO2 from industrial waste gases. This compound has the potential to be adapted by carbon-capturing technologies to aid the reduction of CO2. If Singapore communicates their learnings to eliminate the contributing factor (CO2) of fossil fuels, I postulate the possibility of high cuts of GHG gases worldwide.

To sum up, Singapore is a role model with extensive knowledge in low-carbon technologies, and I hypothesize that if this proficiency is applied by all the participating countries, it could be the overriding factor to major abatements of carbon emissions that result climate change.


References

Alok, S. (2020, 20 December). Commentary: Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action. Channel News Asia. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/uncop26-climate-change-commitment-net-zero-clean-energy-uk-13798700

 

Geralyne, K. O. (2015, April 27). Meet EVA, She is the Taxi of Our Future. Techstorm.

https://www.techstorm.tv/meet-eva-she-is-the-taxi-of-our-future/

 

Jones, D. (2020, 10 July). Singapore Encourages Investment Toward Decarbonizing Shipping. Lexology.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=37d96f04-cd04-40c4-aa2f-9e22ba15ca4b

 

Mary, P. B. (2020, 7 July). New CCUS Framework in Development for Singapore. Chemical Engineering Essentials for The CPI Professional.

https://www.chemengonline.com/new-ccus-framework-in-development-for-singapore/

Comments

  1. Thank you very much, Ming Hao, for this well-researched and interesting essay. You provide a clear, concise, and fairly complete summary. You also present a decent thesis — with specific controlling ideas — though you might be able to clarify it further. I like the way you support the thesis in your body paragraphs with rich information, but what seems to be missing are clearly articulated topic sentences that directly relate back to the thesis and its controlling ideas. There are other minor issues in terms of language use and citation conventions that we can review, but content-wise this is a fairly strong effort. Let’s talk.

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