Preparing for Worst of Climate Change with $72B Defense Plan

While governments around the world are struggling to meet the goals of the Paris agreement — keeping the global temperature increase to about 1.5 degrees Celsius and the rise in sea levels to less than 0.5 meters — Singapore is devising a S$100 billion ($72 billion) plan to safeguard the city against temperatures and floodwaters several times those levels.

Analysis by the Meteorological Service Singapore’s Centre for Climate Research Singapore suggests that in a worst case scenario, floods could rise by almost 4 meters, factoring in effects like storm surges — an increase that would submerge cities from New York to Shanghai and London if repeated globally.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has called climate change a matter of “life and death,” an existential threat to the country as important as national defense. “Everything else must bend at the knee to safeguard the existence of our island nation,” Lee said in August at his National Day Rally — Singapore’s version of the State of Union address.