Carbon emissions from Singapore's land use expected to grow

Planting new trees cannot replace carbon loss from forest clearance in short term

- Shabana Begum

Planet-warming emissions from Singapore's land use sector are expected to grow between now and 2030 – a sign that more deforestation could be on the cards for the country.

Total emissions from this sector are low, contributing just 0.06 per cent to the nation's total emissions inventory in 2022. The bulk of Singapore's emissions comes from the energy sector.

But figures on projected emissions from land-use change – detailed in a climate report that Singapore submitted to the United Nations in November – show that planting new trees cannot replace carbon loss from forest clearance in the short term.

The report showed that in 2022, greenhouse gas emissions from Singapore's land use, land-use change and forestry sector were 0.04 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2eq). CO2eq is a measure of greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions are expected to more than double to 0.09 MtCO2eq in 2025, before rising to 0.14 MtCO2eq in 2030, said the Republic's first biennial transparency report.

This is despite reforestation and tree planting efforts, such as the ongoing initiative to plant a million more trees across the island by 2030. Since the launch of the One Million Trees movement in April 2020, more than 730,000 trees have been planted here.

The report also showed that from the year 2000 up until the early 2010s, Singapore's land use, land-use change and forestry sector was a net sink – meaning that land in the Republic absorbed more emissions than it released.

Forests help to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis, locking up the carbon in biomass such as tree trunks.

The land use, land-use change and forestry sector turned into a net source of emissions in 2014, contributing 0.02 MtCO2eq that year.