Getting our urban environment to net-zero

Our urban infrastructure is responsible for almost 40 per cent of global carbon emissions. Climate solutions need to include the biggest energy guzzlers, clean energy and retrofitting old buildings.

Decarbonising cities is no easy feat, with its high electricity consumption, demand for cooling and embedded emissions from the construction of buildings.

The task is particularly challenging for small and dense Singapore, which has no natural hinterland to absorb the city’s emissions.

So solutions will need to cover all aspects of the built environment – from data centres, which consume a large amount of power, to waterworks and even old buildings, which form the bulk of Singapore’s infrastructure.

Plan it well, and some of these climate mitigation features could also help to protect the city’s inhabitants from the effects of global warming, such as sea-level rise and the fluctuations in rainfall and temperatures that threaten to submerge cities or make them too hot to live in.

Initiatives by Keppel, a Singapore-headquartered multinational company providing solutions for sustainable urbanisation, strive to show the journey to net-zero for urban environments.

The video, “Journey to Net Zero”, is produced with Keppel ahead of Earth Hour 2022, a worldwide movement to commemorate climate action.

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