A busy year for MEWR, NEA and PUB
Speech by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Committee of Supply Debate, 11 March 2014 (Section A)
Date Published: 11 Mar 2014
1. Mdm Chair, my colleagues in NEA, PUB and MEWR have had a very busy year. In the space of 12 months, we have had to confront the worst haze episode ever; the worst dengue outbreak ever; we still had a couple of localised flash floods to deal with, and now we have the most prolonged dry spell ever. February has been the driest month on record and also the windiest month on record. We seem to be bent on breaking new records all the time.
The haze – and what a difference three weeks make
Our skies were blue and the air crystal clear today.
Had a long discussion in Parliament on the cause of the haze and our plans for the future. I thanked Singaporeans for your calmness, patience, and the fact that you refused to get rattled by the situation. It is that ability to respond sensibly, rationally, cohesively and collectively as a people that makes the difference and makes me confident that we will get through this together, whatever happens.
Sustainable development makes good business sense, especially in Singapore
The world is currently at several inflexion points. There are now more than seven billion human beings on the planet, and more than half of us live in cities. Indeed, the most essential elements of life – food, water – are now interlinked with energy, and with fossil fuels. And this portends therefore, either a potential crisis or enormous opportunities for businesses in the years ahead.
In the past, great fortunes were made by simply extracting resources, mining materials – iron ore and energy – from the ground. And manufacturing grew enormously, on the back of the availability of cheap resources and cheap energy. But this era of cheap natural resources is coming to a close. And we can now no longer afford to ignore the externalities of industrialisation and of human activities. Pollution and global warming are real phenomena, which affect not just the quality of the environment, but also involves huge economic costs for all of us. In other words, the old ways of getting rich are not going to be viable in the future.