In 2016, Ho Xiang Tian co-founded the whimsically-named environmental group LepakInSG – “Lepak” means to go someplace to calm down, in Malay and “Singlish” – with the unique intention of manufacturing a easy on-line calendar for environmental occasions in Singapore.
“At the moment nobody in Singapore was fascinated by environmental points. By selecting a enjoyable, casual identify, we thought we might trick a number of individuals into clicking on our web site,” mentioned Ho, who began the group with Nor Lastrina Hamid and Gracie Low when he was in his remaining yr at Singapore Polytechnic.
However after three days of copy and pasting occasions right into a Google calendar, the trio received bored. As a substitute, they determined to provoke green-themed occasions, workshops and public training campaigns. A yr later, LepakInSG had developed into a totally fledged environmental advocacy group.
Eight years on, Ho is one in all Singapore’s most distinguished younger environmental activists, agitating for his nation to do its fair proportion to sluggish international warming, curb useful resource consumption – the city-state’s ecological footprint exceeds its biocapacity by as a lot as 10,400 per cent, which is the very best for any nation – and scale back biodiversity loss because it urbanises and its wild areas dwindle.
I want to see extra transparency. I’d additionally prefer to see a Singapore that’s much less enterprise pleasant on the expense of the surroundings – as a result of that appears to be what is going on now.
Ho Xiang Tian, co-founder, LepakInSG
Ho Xiang Tian’s bio on LepakInSG’s web site. Picture: LepakInSG.wordpress.com
Ho’s relaxed strategy to campaigning – he’s recognized in sustainability circles because the man who all the time wears slippers, even to official authorities occasions – has given him and his workforce a playful, non-confrontational vibe in a politically conservative nation that may be a troublesome place for activists who publicly criticise authorities coverage and rally for systemic change.
Although understated, Ho has not shied from placing his head above the parapet to push for extra progressive environmental insurance policies in Singapore. In a speech at a local weather rally in September final yr, Ho railed towards the packaging trade for blocking polluter pays legal guidelines, Large Oil for not paying taxes, and the federal government for doing the “naked minimal” to reply to the local weather emergency.
Ho lives by a precept he campaigns for – to protect assets. The non-profit he runs has spent nothing on campaigns, operations or the rest since its founding in 2016, he mentioned.
“We’re cheapskates, I suppose… We based LepakInSG once we have been college students. It was simpler to seek out individuals who might give me what I wanted without spending a dime somewhat than discover the cash to get stuff. Over time it grew to become a matter of precept to spend nothing.”
The group runs on the “blood, sweat and tears” of its 20 volunteers. Juggling pupil and work life – Ho’s day job is as a analysis assistant at Singapore Administration College, working below distinguished local weather scientist Winston Chow – “Lepak-ers” double or triple hat, engaged on points reminiscent of land use, meals safety, deciphering worldwide negotiations, and networking to bridge the divide between Singapore’s nature and sustainability communities (“they don’t actually discuss, so we attempt to convey them collectively,” mentioned Ho).
This yr has been a giant yr for the 28-year-old Singaporean, whose workforce efficiently pushed again towards proposed fish farms within the Southern Islands they apprehensive would smash coral reefs, and took the Singapore Meals Company to process over discrepancies in its meals import knowledge. On this interview, Ho talks in regards to the future Singapore he most needs to see.
In your speech at this yr’s SG Local weather Rally, you mentioned that the federal government is doing the naked minimal to deal with local weather change. What extra can Singapore do?
Singapore has set a goal of reaching internet zero by 2050, which is the goal scientists have set to restrict international warming to not more than 1.5°C. It is a affordable goal, however it’s the naked minimal that we will do to deal with local weather change.
International locations that may afford to get to internet zero earlier ought to get there earlier. This could assist international locations which are struggling to achieve internet zero by giving them a buffer to hit the 2050 goal a bit later.
The narrative we all the time hear from the federal government is that Singapore is small, and solely emits 0.1 per cent of world carbon emissions. However the local weather disaster is not only about us. Singapore has the assets and the potential to assist the area transition to internet zero a lot quicker.
How can it do this?
One avenue is thru capability constructing programmes, which Singapore is already doing for some international locations. However these programmes shouldn’t be nearly setting a net-zero goal. We have to assist international locations get to internet zero quicker with options to transition from fossil fuels, put together energy grids for renewables, transfer away from coal – and particularly not let firms and banks in Singapore proceed to fund fossil gasoline tasks in our neighbouring international locations.
Equally, Singapore ought to search to remove its position in deforestation and the destruction of carbon sinks within the area. If an organization is headquartered in Singapore, and they’re deforesting in Borneo, you can not say that that may be a downside for the Indonesian authorities to handle, as a result of you haven’t any jurisdiction. The road of accountability doesn’t must be so clearly drawn. If we have now the means and the assets to assist different international locations, we should always.
Ho and Winston Chow (proper), professor of city local weather and Lee Kong Chian analysis fellow at Singapore Administration College, on the Eco-Enterprise Sustainability Management A-Checklist in January. Picture: Roy Ng / Eco-Enterprise
Inform us extra a few key thrust of your speech at SG Local weather Rally, wherein you prompt that trade gamers have had an unhealthy affect over authorities coverage, notably relating to guidelines to cut back plastic consumption and the carbon tax.
The purpose I used to be attempting to make was that the trade can’t be trusted to have their very own voluntary agreements – for something. Trade will promise us one thing, set a goal, and put within the least doable quantity of effort to achieve that focus on – which delays motion to deal with the problem. One instance of that is the carbon tax in Singapore. It was initially going to be S$10 (US$7.44) to S$20 (US$14.88) {dollars} per tonne of greenhouse gasoline emissions. But it surely someway dropped to S$5 (US$3.72) [when the government introduced it]. Trade was attempting to tug its toes. And it labored.
[Background note: The Singapore government announced plans to implement a carbon tax of between S$10 and S20 per tonne of emissions from 2019 at Budget 2017 and started a six-week public consultation. It introduced the carbon tax at S$5 per tonne of emissions in November 2022. The tax rate will progressively increase to S$25 per tonne in 2024 and 2024, and S$45 per tonne in 2026 and beyond.]
How would you need the connection between the federal government and companies to vary?
I want to see extra transparency. I’d additionally prefer to see a Singapore that’s much less enterprise pleasant on the expense of the surroundings – as a result of that appears to be what is going on now. Besides, I consider that the federal government is beginning to acknowledge that we will not stick with it like we have now achieved traditionally.
I’ve heard from a senior supply on the Ministry of Sustainability and the Atmosphere that Singapore has plans to finally section out fossil fuels from its refineries [Singapore is one of the world’s largest oil refining hubs]. The federal government does recognise that whereas fossil fuels helped us once we have been small and weak, now that our economic system has matured, it’s time to maneuver on. We can’t be caught refining petrochemicals without end.
A lot has been product of the lack of Singapore’s secondary forests to make means for residential housing and the influence this might have on biodiversity and concrete heating. What’s your view on this?
The Nationwide Parks Board usually does job of sustaining our nature reserves. However forest patches that aren’t a part of a nature park or a nature reserve are in danger. My workforce has mapped these forest patches as a part of the mission Our Wild Areas. Based mostly on the City Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) masterplan [which maps out areas of the city that will be developed over the next 10 to 15 years), we could be losing a lot of our remaining secondary forest patches.
A map of wild spaces under threat from development in Singapore. Purple areas indicate reserve sites, where future plans have not been determined. Yellow indicates forest not cleared, but earmarked for residential or business development. Red indicated forests cleared or partially cleared for residential or business use. Image: LepakInSG / Our Wild Spaces
We need to think about how to make better use of space that is already developed, so we can leave our wild spaces untouched for as long as possible. Many of our golf courses’ leases expire by 2030. [Singapore’s 17 golf courses cover two per cent of the country’s land area.] The federal government is planning to take again a few of these leases for growth, which is an effective factor.
We additionally have to optimise built-up areas. URA has achieved a reasonably good job of intensifying land use, as an illustration Our Tampines Hub, which mixes a group centre, purchasing centre, sports activities corridor, hawker centre and library in a single place. Shifting ahead, we ought to be taking a look at which land parcels we will make higher use of, somewhat than creating inexperienced subject websites.
I’ve a radical thought. Instead of flattening forests to make means for public housing, take away landed properties and provides whoever’s dwelling in them a penthouse condominium in a public housing block.
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Cease clearing Singapore’s forests for public housing, use landed property and golf programs as an alternative.
Describe the Singapore of the long run you most need to see.
A Singapore with a constructed surroundings extra in concord with the local weather. Reasonably than simply metal and concrete bins pumped with airconditioning, there can be conventional buildings impressed by vernacular structure that enable passive cooling.
A Singapore with thriving pure ecosystems. What we have now now’s fairly good, however I’d prefer to see higher connectivity between forest patches, and secondary forests given the time and house to develop to allow them to help extra wildlife, even wildlife from Malaysia escaping deforestation [the southern part of neighbouring Johor has been extensively deforested in recent years to make way for development]. We might see extra tapirs in Punggol [A rare Malayan tapir was spotting running along Punggol park connector in September 2023; it was only the third sighting of the endangered mammals in Singapore, which are typically found in the rainforests of Malaysia, since 1986]!
A Singapore with fewer vehicles on the roads – and fewer house taken up by roads. Extra individuals would use public transport, and use a public transport system that’s even higher than what we have now now – despite the fact that I acknowledge that we have already got a world-class public transport system.
A extra walkable metropolis. At sure occasions of the day, from 11am to 4pm, it’s virtually unimaginable to stroll across the metropolis. If there was extra shading alongside the roads and paths – and pure shading somewhat than sheltered walkways – Singapore can be rather more walkable and habitable.
And a Singapore that may be a real local weather motion chief. Our local weather goal can be introduced ahead, maybe to 2030. We might obtain internet zero, and be on the trail to carbon negativity. With the assets we have now, this isn’t an unrealistic ambition.
The interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
Ho Xiang Tian was one in all 10 younger sustainability leaders chosen for the Eco-Enterprise Youth A-Checklist 2023. Learn our tales with the opposite winners right here.
