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Singapore aims to be a key player in trading unused greenhouse gas quotas, estimated to be worth at least US$25 billion last year.
The head of the Republic's National Climate Change Committee, Dr Amy Khor, said the idea was discussed at a public consultation exercise last year.
Climate change is widely accepted as one of the biggest threats facing the world.
But under the Kyoto international agreement to reduce harmful emissions by 2012, some countries can buy extra greenhouse gas allowances from developing countries under a scheme called Clean Development Mechanism credits, or CDM.
Dr Khor said: "This is really one of the economic opportunities that has resulted from our efforts to mitigate and address climate change. We have talked with industry who are interested in such CDM projects. We have also put the companies together with financial companies and see how they can embark on such projects to take advantage of such opportunities."
And the government plans not just to play a part in the market, but take a central role in carbon trading as well.
Dr Khor said: "Singapore is one of the countries to either work as one of the hubs for the CDM projects or work with the region to embark on such CDM projects and where the carbon credits can be traded."
But not everyone at the forum agrees on focusing on cutting emissions overseas.
Wilson Ang, ECO Singapore, said: "They should focus more on a national level where they could make carbon trading internally to help cut the overall carbon emission."
The government is also assessing ways it can adopt in the future to cut carbon emissions.
Dr Khor said: "Some of the short-term measures that we have been looking at would be fuel economy labelling on vehicles. Whether we can expand it, whether we can make this mandatory, as we have received in our feedback. We are also looking at energy labelling. We have said we will make it mandatory for aircon and refrigerators. Actually, feedback has said we should expand this to further appliances. And one of the appliances is clothes drying equipment."
The committee wants to extend the labelling to TVs, PCs and lights too.
At the same time, it is studying how businesses can play their part.
Dr Khor said: "We are also looking at corporate CO2 (carbon dioxide) reporting, how to put incentives and encourage CO2 reporting in the short term and in the medium term, looking at a carbon intensity index."
The panel will publish the full report on its climate change ideas later this year. - CNA/ch
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