Press Conference Asian Green City Index. Barbara Kux Member of the Managing Board Chief Sustainability Officer, Siemens AG Singapore February 14, 2011

Transcription

1 Press Conference Asian Green City Index Barbara Kux Member of the Managing Board Chief Sustainability Officer, Singapore February 14, 2011 Check against delivery.

2 I m pleased to be here in Singapore to present an important and timely research project: the Asian Green City Index. The message I d like to give you today in this context is very simple. Shorted to a headline, it would read: Asian cities will make the difference for sustainable development globally. Most of the global population growth in the next decades will take place in Asia s cities. As these are being transformed at a breathtaking pace, they need to tap and utilize the best ideas and methods available to ensure they remain viable in the future. We believe that a comparative approach is the most effective way to highlight where things are going well, and where there is room for improvement. About a year ago, Siemens commissioned the Economist Intelligence Unit to conduct a study of urban development in Asia. The resulting Asian Green City Index carefully evaluates 22 major cities throughout Asia based on almost thirty environmental sustainability criteria. The scope of this research project is unique. It was independently researched, and the methodology was developed in consultation with leading international urban sustainability experts. The Asian Green City Index supports cities in their efforts to expand their infrastructures on a sustainable basis. We want to enable Asia s up-and-coming urban centers to achieve healthy growth rates coupled with a high quality of life. One of the report s findings is that one Asian city has been especially successful in pursuing ambitious environmental targets, effectively implementing environmental policies and for its integrated master planning. This city was found to be the Greenest City in Asia. That city is Singapore. I m delighted that Dr. Amy Khor, Mayor of South West District of Singapore, is here with us this morning. Two decisive reasons put Singapore upfront: First, the government of Singapore has rigorously targeted the protection of the environment and resources, and sustainable development, ever since the country won its independence in And it has implemented this policy with countless projects and measures over the years. And second, the government didn t dilute its commitment by working in many different fields, but rather focused on key areas such as water, waste and energy efficiency. Yet, there are also areas for improvement in Singapore, and this is the real value of the Asian City Index: It allows looking across cities and finding examples of good practice that can be implemented elsewhere. With per capita emissions of 7.4. tons of CO 2, Singapore is way above the average of the Asian cities we looked at. This is on par with other megacities like London and mostly due to the fact that Singapore is a highly developed city. However, it also is a case for action because this level of emissions is not compatible with the widely accepted goal of 2 / 5

3 limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. I am sure that Singapore will also tackle this challenge with vision, prudence and determination. In a few minutes I will ask Dr. Amy Khor to come on stage to accept the Green City Award on behalf of Singapore. The ultimate goal of the Green City Index project, however, is not to pick winners the goal is to identify best practices and to advance and share good ideas. In many ways Singapore as well as other cities studied in this report can serve as role models, inspiring others with their ideas and innovative policies. The Asian Green City Index is the third in the Green City Index series conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit in cooperation with Siemens. The first was released 2009 at the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. That report the European Green City Index used a similar methodology to compare and analyze 30 European cities. The second study, the Latin American Green City Index, was presented last November in Mexico City at the World Mayors Summit on Climate and evaluated 17 leading Latin American cities. Since its publication, both the European and Latin American Green City Index have helped cities to learn from one another, and to develop a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses regarding issues of urban sustainability. In the coming months, there will be further studies focusing on cities in Africa and North America. The challenges facing us in the future, especially in cities, are enormous. Urban agglomerations account for approximately 75 percent of the world's energy consumption and for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. That s why cities are the place where solutions for a more sustainable future are being shaped today. The trend toward urbanization, above all here in Asia, raises the question of how soaring populations can be provided with infrastructure that conserves resources and protects the climate. The urbanization challenge confronting Asian cities is unprecedented. The share of the Asian population living in urban areas has grown from 32 percent in 1990 to 42 percent in At the projected rates of growth, Asian cities must be ready to collectively accommodate an expected 1.1 billion additional residents over the next 20 years. The accelerating urbanization in Asia is also reflected in the number of cities with populations of over a million. In 2000, 194 of the 387 million-plus cities worldwide were in Asia, only 62 in Europe and a mere 41 in North America. The trend toward more million-plus cities in Asia continues to accelerate. And the rapidly growing cities in Asia simply don t have the time to develop slowly over centuries, as did 3 / 5

4 European cities. To meet and master the challenges of the future, Asia s cities must leapfrog in their development. And for us at Siemens, it is clear: Technical innovation is the key for Asian cities to find and pursue the best path toward a future that is both climatefriendly and worth living. Technologies to transmit electricity more effectively, use energy more economically, and move people more efficiently, are crucial to making cities more sustainable. Many of these technologies pay for themselves by saving energy over their lifetime. They are not luxuries for affluent cities; they are good investments for every city including those in emerging economies. Cities can secure and improve their attractiveness and competitiveness with modern infrastructure. The key to that is efficiency. Andrew Tan, CEO of Singapore s National Environment Agency, made this clear when he said: Our limited space makes it vital for us to be different. Having a well-functioning city with a clean environment gives us a valuable competitive advantage. But it is especially important that cities clearly focus on the fields with the greatest potential for improvement. The Asian Green City Index will help the cities of Asia to identify these fields. And it should help them learn from one another by highlighting good ideas and pointing to areas for improvement. I am confident that it will play an important role in the public policy initiatives of many cities in the years ahead. One question remains: Why is Siemens sponsoring this type of research? Again, the answer is clear. We believe it is crucial for cities to take action to protect the global environment. And we want to ensure that information on effective technologies and environmental solutions is available to help cities with this effort. We have already acted to contribute in this regard, successfully transforming our 160-year-old technology company into THE green infrastructure pioneer. Our Environmental Portfolio is one of the largest and broadest offering of green products and services in the world. Our unique and innovative solutions help to protect our environment, and help make the world s growing cities more sustainable. This past fiscal year, our Environmental Portfolio generated revenue of 28 billion euros more than a third of our total revenue. As green markets continue to grow, this figure will also grow. By 2014, our target is to generate more than 40 billion euros in green revenue! 4 / 5

5 Let me give you just three examples of our contributions to making Asian cities more sustainable. The first example is power supplies: Just last fall, we turned over two highefficiency, eco-friendly co-generation units for PowerSeraya s Combined Cycle Power Cogeneration Plant on Jurong Island. These units play a major role in meeting Singapore's increasing energy requirements in an environment friendly and cost-effective manner. My second example is building efficiency: At the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a number of our projects like the five permanent pavilions demonstrated how state-of-the-art building systems can effectively utilize part of the great energy efficiency potential in cities. The enormous 160,000-square-meter China Pavilion, for example, consumes around 25 percent less energy than a conventional building, partly thanks to our energy-saving building technology. At the same time, we equipped several buildings in the Yangpu district of Shanghai with modern technologies thus reducing their energy consumption by 16 percent. My third example is mobility: Within ten years, Siemens has handed over three turnkey railbased systems to the city of Bangkok: The initial rapid transit system in 1999, - the first metro line in 2004, and the Airport Rail Link, which has been transporting passengers from the city center to Suvarnabhumi Airport in only 15 minutes since last summer. Our integrated transportation concepts have made decisive contributions toward solving the mobility problems of this rapidly growing city. And there are more examples to be found in the Siemens magazine Pictures of the Future, which is available here at this press conference. February 14 th, / 5