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-- Harya Setyaka Duren Tiga Selatan 89 Jakarta Selatan 12760 Cell : +62 815 607 0927 T/F : +62 21 7997039 INDONESIA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vaswani Kamal R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Jun 24, 2008 10:43 PM Subject: Fw: SPEECH BY MR LEE HSIEN LOONG,PRIME MINISTER, AT THE JOINT OPENING OF THE SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL WATER WEEK, WORLD CITIES SUMMIT AND EAST ASIA SUMMIT CONFERENCE ON LIVEABLE CITIES, 24 JUNE 2008, 9.45 AM To: Vaswani Kamal R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Message Classification: **Unclassified* *SPEECH BY MR LEE HSIEN LOONG,PRIME MINISTER, AT THE JOINT OPENING OF THE SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL WATER WEEK, WORLD CITIES SUMMIT AND EAST ASIA SUMMIT CONFERENCE ON LIVEABLE CITIES, 24 JUNE 2008, 9.45 AM* *Introduction * *1.** **I am very happy to join you this morning. Let me extend a warm welcome to our guests from abroad. Three related events are taking place in Singapore this week – the **Singapore International Water Week**, the **World Cities Summit**, and the **East Asia Summit Conference on Liveable Cities**. They differ in emphasis, but all three are inspired by the same broader challenge of sustainable development. * *2.** **Sustainable development has become especially important with urbanisation happening on an unprecedented scale. In 1900, only 16 cities in the world had a population of one million; today there are more than 400. Cities are dynamic engines of growth, creating jobs and providing opportunities for a better life. But as cities grow, they also put tremendous strain on resources and create acute challenges for environmental sustainability. How can cities develop vibrantly, and improve the lives of their residents in ways that are compatible with the environment over the long-term? * *Challenge of Sustainable Development* *3.** **These are complex and diverse issues, which do not lend themselves to simple solutions. At the heart of it, all cities strive for certain common goals in sustainable living – clean air, clean water, good living environment and efficient use of resources. These goals cannot be achieved in isolation. They require a holistic approach, integrated with sound urban management policies. * *Energy Efficiency* *4.** **The first element of sustainable living is to conserve resources. It is especially important to conserve energy, in the form of electricity and fuel. This is both to minimise wastage, and also because usually energy derives from fossil fuel, and saving energy also reduces carbon emissions. * *5.** **To have the greatest effect, energy efficiency should be factored into the way the whole city is designed, including its urban layout, buildings, transport system and industrial facilities. But few cities start from a blank slate. They have usually been built over the decades and even centuries, and have inherited physical structures and systems which have become part of their history and identity. These cannot be easily modified, much less razed and rebuilt from scratch. Such cities can still improve their energy efficiency, for example by encouraging use of public transport instead of cars, and not over-cooling or over-heating buildings. But substantial improvements will take time. It will require systematic planning for the future, making incremental changes as opportunities arise, to move towards a longer-term goal. * *6.** **To achieve results in energy efficiency and conservation, it is important to get the economics right. Energy, whether electricity or petrol, should be priced properly and not subsidised. Ideally energy should be priced not just at today's market levels, but also taking into account the likelihood of a future carbon-constrained world, be it due to scarcer supplies of fossil fuels or a post-Kyoto regime to restrain carbon emissions. This will provide the right incentives to avoid over-consumption and to economise on the use of energy. It is no coincidence that countries and cities where energy prices are higher, also tend to use energy more efficiently. For example, Denmark and Japan both have high power prices and energy-efficient economies. In America, energy prices vary across the different states, and the states with prices above the national average invariably consume less energy. * *7.** **Another strategy is to shift towards clean and renewable energy, like wind and solar power, with a smaller carbon footprint. These should be part of the solution, but realistically they lack the scale to replace more than a small proportion of fossil fuel use. Green power is also much more expensive than fossil fuels, except for a few places like Iceland, which are endowed with abundant clean energy sources. Nevertheless, technology is progressing steadily, and gradually bringing down the cost of alternative energy. Cities should therefore adopt an evolving, creative response towards these new technologies, learning how best they can be used to help meet part of their energy needs. At the same time, R&D on clean energy technologies, including safe nuclear power, needs to be one important component of mankind's response to global warming. * *Water Management* *8.** **A second critical element of sustainable living is water management. The supply and management of water is fundamental to every city. The ancient Romans built aqueducts that were masterpieces of engineering, bringing water to their cities from hundreds of kilometres away. Some Roman aqueducts are in use even today. In contrast, London in the mid-1800s was rife with waterborne diseases like cholera, until it built an efficient sewage system, and stopped using the River Thames as an open sewer. * *9.** **If providing safe, reliable, and affordable water was difficult in the past, the pace and scale of urbanisation today has only intensified the challenge. More and more cities and countries see access to water as a security concern and a potential trigger of conflict. Global warming can aggravate this by altering existing water distribution patterns, intensifying droughts and disrupting the lives of millions, as is happening in Darfur.* *10.** **However, scarcity of water is rarely the sole problem. As a whole, the world is not short of water. But mankind is short of clean, fresh water, available where people live and need it. A large part of the problem is the lack of sound water management practices. It is not enough to build the best water treatment plants, and then neglect to protect the water catchments from squatters or pollution. Ensuring a clean and reliable supply of potable water requires cities to take an integrated approach, from the reservoirs, catchment areas and water treatment plants, to the reticulation, sanitation and sewerage system.* *11.** **R&D, technology and innovation also play a vital role in water management. There have been breakthroughs in water technologies, more so than in clean energy. In the last two decades, advances in reverse osmosis and membrane technologies have made desalination, water reuse and other water purification techniques significantly cheaper, and enabled them to be deployed on a large scale. This has transformed the problem from an absolute resource constraint to a question of economics. More water is available, at the right price. With a workable funding model, it is possible to build and operate water factories on a sustainable basis. Proper pricing will also help to discourage over-consumption and provide the right incentives for the private sector to develop additional sources of clean water to meet the growing demand.* *Air Quality* *12.** **A third element of sustainable living is to maintain good air quality and keep pollution under control. Air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and particulate matter not only affect the overall quality of life, but cause respiratory ailments and many other health problems. This is a major problem in many Asian cities.* *13.** **It is not possible for cities to completely eliminate harmful pollutants. But they should keep emissions within acceptable limits, guided by international scientific benchmarks like those from the World Health Organisation and the US Environmental Protection Agency. This depends on rigorous and impartial enforcement of the standards. In addition, governments can reduce emissions by encouraging the use of cleaner and more efficient industrial processes, fuels and modes of transport.* *14.** **However, air pollution is not a localised problem. The pollutants spread far and wide, borne on the winds for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres. So apart from domestic measures, governments also need to work with one another to maintain good air quality. For example, Hong Kong is affected by pollution from the Pearl River delta, while Southeast Asia is periodically blanketed by haze pollution from forest fires. Such trans-border challenges require us to look beyond local strategies and work closely with one another. The strong multilateral and bilateral ties built up among ASEAN countries have been important in this regard. * *Urban Planning* *15.** **Finally, a good overall living environment must be founded on sound urban planning, to ensure that infrastructure is provided in a timely manner to support population and economic growth. North American and European cities urbanised over 200 years, a gradual process by modern standards. Today, cities undergo a similar urban transition in just 10 to 20 years. These cities therefore need to build new urban infrastructure much more rapidly, constructing homes, utilities, roads, commercial and other facilities one after the other, while containing urban sprawl. Indeed, the best cities do far more than providing basic infrastructure. They also plan for human-scale communities, where residents have easy access to amenities and recreational spaces, minimising the need to commute while maximising the opportunities for interaction. * *16.** **To manage growth well, at the macro level, cities need long-term vision and proactive planning. They must take a long-term outlook, carefully balancing competing land use needs and judiciously safeguarding land for future development. Plans have to be constantly updated, to factor in new requirements and changing circumstances, without losing coherence or planning discipline. At the micro level, cities need a robust regulatory framework to prevent unbridled expansion and to control pollution and congestion. This applies to both established and developing cities. * *17.** **Sustainable development is complex. There is no silver bullet. Trade-offs are inevitable, and cities have to strike the right balance for themselves, and decide how far to go. Here good policies matter. Governments can achieve much by holistic, long-term planning, pricing and managing resources properly, enforcing standards and planning norms, and thus guiding the development of cities without straitjacketing them. * *Singapore's Experience * *18.** **As a small city-state with no natural resources, Singapore has more than its fair share of these challenges. Our experience shows one way a dense and land-scarce city can achieve both economic vibrancy and environmental sustainability. * *19.** **Water, for example, is in our circumstances a strategic resource. We have ensured a sustainable supply to serve our needs, by exploiting technology to the full, efficiently using and reusing water resources, and sound pricing. Beyond local catchments and imported water, we now have desalinated water and recycled water, which we call NEWater. NEWater supplies 15% of Singapore's water needs today, which will rise to 30% in the next few years. With NEWater, we have closed the water loop by re-introducing reclaimed water back into the water supply, thus making maximum use of every single drop of water. This wide-scale recycling is possible because Singapore has a fully sewered system, so that we can collect and treat all the wastewater generated. It also helps that a single agency, the Public Utilities Board, manages the entire water cycle in an integrated manner. * *20.** **In urban planning, we have adopted an integrated and long-term approach to make the most appropriate use of every piece of land, and strike a balance between supporting economic growth and maintaining a high quality living environment. By building self-sufficient towns, decentralising commercial activities beyond the city centre and harmonising public transport infrastructure with land use, we have reduced the need for workers to commute. Vehicle ownership control measures, road pricing and a good public transport network also help to keep traffic on our roads free flowing.* *21.** **Today, despite rapid urbanisation over the last four decades, we have managed to keep almost half of Singapore still covered by greenery. And we are continuously looking for ways to make Singapore still greener. Not too far from here, in Marina Bay, our new business and financial district, we have carved out reclaimed land along the waterfront to develop three distinctive gardens called Gardens by the Bay. Around the island, over 100 kilometres of park connectors now link suburban centres and recreational facilities to parks and coastlines. We will triple this network of green corridors over the next decade, and transform our canals and reservoirs into recreational waterways. Singapore will become a city of gardens and water. * *Collaborative Efforts* *22.** **Some of Singapore's solutions may be relevant to other emerging cities in Asia and the world. But no single city or country will have all the answers. Instead we need closer collaboration to share expertise and experiences, pursue joint research projects and develop pragmatic, workable solutions. * *23.** **To further this research agenda, Singapore will be setting up two new institutes that will focus on policy and practice. The Institute of Water Policy will be set up under the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. It will undertake policy research, to complement the investments in water R&D and the expanding water industry cluster here in Singapore. * *24.** **The second institute, the Centre for Liveable Cities, will bring together Singapore's expertise on sustainable urban development from across government, industry and academia. It will host an integrated body of knowledge on the liveability of cities, encompassing areas such as urban planning, environmental management, sustainable transport solutions and effective resource management. * *25.** **The private sector is also an important source of innovative ideas. Singapore can be a "living laboratory" for companies to experiment and adapt urban solutions for use around the world. For example, Siemens is setting up its Global Centre of Competence for City Management here, as a test-bed and launch pad for innovative IT solutions in city management. Many other local and foreign companies are also based here. They are investing in R&D projects, testing out new ideas and providing comprehensive urban solutions to emerging cities in China, India, Vietnam and the Middle East. From Singapore, companies can plug into this vibrant network to collaborate and export their services regionally and globally. * *Conclusion* *26.** **The sustainable development of cities is one of the key challenges of our time. Good governance is vital in tackling this challenge, and achieving the right balance between economic growth, environmental protection, and high quality of life for urban dwellers. The stakes are high and we have to get it right early. The welfare of our peoples depends on how well we harness our collective ideas, knowledge and capabilities. Countries and cities should work together, so that we make progress towards cleaner, more resource-efficient, and more vibrant cities for the future. *
