Stop Spending Money on Sustainability.
- Ryan Woon
- Sep 19
- 2 min read
I was curious (and kind of bored tbh) so I brought up my trusty CoPilot AI for a small debate.
I typed out a question: "How many percent of Singapore will be lost to rising sea levels if humanity continues its current carbon output trend?"
Well, CoPilot reported 15-20% (or around 110km² out of the 735.7km² that Singapore has). It didn't seem that bad at first, but if you think about it, the whole of Tuas and Tuas south is only 45km²! CoPilot then said that losing land was not the major concern. Infrastructural stresses is the one we should be concerned about.
I suddenly remembered that Singapore announced a coastal and flood protection fund a few years ago during the Singapore Budget 2020. If you are unfamilair, Singapore injected S$5 billion into the fund in 2020, and will be injecting a further S$5 billion in 2025. That is a total of S$10 billion spent on planning and improving existing drainages, and before anything concrete is being built. Given Singapore's population of 6 million, it equates to a spending of S$1,666 per capita.
My next question to CoPilot was, "What is the expected spending to fully build coastal protections around Singapore to safeguard us from rising sea levels?".
The answer? Roughly S$100 billion across multiple phases and decades. Now this equates to roughly S$16,000 per capita!
I slumped back into my chair, pondering the deeper consequences of this spending. These monies have to come from somewhere. That somewhere is us. We as taxpayers have to fork out the S$100 billion to fortify our beloved country from rising sea levels. And we will only solve one impact of climate change. We still have not considered other impacts, such as increased air toxicity and increased temperatures.
The thing is, as businesspeople, do not think too much about these spendings as we have way too much to worry about now. But at the end of the day, we are not avoiding spending on sustainability. We are merely delaying it. What we do not spend now on sustainability will lead to tax hikes in the future to fund climate change defenses. The longer we delay this, the more we will need to spend down the road.
I came out of that debate with a fresh perspective. What I am doing now is not spending on sustainability. I am investing in the climate's future. So yes, stop spending money on sustainability. Start investing in survival.
-Ryan Woon
