Warren Fernandez

Opinion | Coronavirus struggle points to the difficulty in tackling climate crisis

The Covid-19 experience – hampered by populist politicians, global inequalities and a pandemic of misinformation – makes plain the difficulties of forging a global consensus on climate change

This is where professional newsrooms have an important role to play. And it is why this year’s World News Day focuses on the climate crisis

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A monk rows a boat along a flooded road on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, on September 3. Extreme weather events, once the stuff of movies, have been playing out across the planet this year. Photo: Xinhua

Warren Fernandez

Published: 5:15pm, 28 Sep 2021

Getting to school as a boy growing up in Singapore in the 1970s could be soggy affair at times. Tropical downpours overwhelmed drainage systems, leaving parts of the island impassable. Students braved the rains and rising waters, turning up wet and bedraggled, if they made it at all.

Thankfully, this became a thing of the past by the late 1980s. Massive flood alleviation efforts caused this story to recede from newspaper front pages, as a modern city state emerged.

Yet, decades on, we seem to be heading back to the future. Severe storms are now becoming more frequent. The result: last month, pictures and videos of upscale districts in central Singapore inundated hit the headlines again, causing much consternation.

But even as the authorities rushed to unveil plans in response to public concerns, a minister warned that, as intense rainfall was becoming more common with global warming, people might have to get used to flash floods from time to time.

Rising sea levels is an existential issue for this low-lying island, about a third of which is less than five metres above the mean sea level. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has estimated that over S$100 billion (US$74 billion) might be needed over the next decades to tackle the rising tides caused by warming seas and melting ice sheets.

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Dozens killed after remnants of Hurricane Ida hit New York and US northeast

But Singapore is not alone. New York City declared a “flash flood emergency” earlier this month after record levels of rain in the wake of Hurricane Ida.