Singapore: Asia’s Urgent Need to Decouple Growth from Emissions Amid Geopolitical Tensions
On September 12, 2024, Singapore hosted the seventh edition of the Unlocking Capital for Sustainability summit. The event, themed “Transforming Asia: Mobilising finance at speed and scale,” focused on leveraging capital markets for sustainable development.
It featured the launch of The Liveability Challenge 2025, a platform by Temasek Foundation aimed at advancing climate solutions.
Decouple Growth from Emissions
Keynote speaker Ravi Menon stressed the need for Asia to decouple economic growth from emissions, stating, “Asia will have to work towards decoupling economic growth from emissions. That is a false choice.”
Professor Kishore Mahbubani highlighted the clash between geopolitics and climate action, emphasizing that, “Humanity is not coming together to deal with climate change… Why are we doing this? The answer is geopolitics.”