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Countries need to cooperate for anti-haze laws to work: Balakrishnan

SINGAPORE — It would be simplistic to think Singapore’s proposed anti-haze laws alone can solve the region’s haze problem, said Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday, as he issued a call for cooperation among the authorities from various countries.

SINGAPORE — It would be simplistic to think Singapore’s proposed anti-haze laws alone can solve the region’s haze problem, said Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday, as he issued a call for cooperation among the authorities from various countries.

Without inter-governmental cooperation, Singapore’s proposed law — which provides for fines up to S$300,000 on companies carrying out activities outside the Republic that result in unhealthy levels of haze on the island — would not work, he said at a dialogue on sustainable world resources organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) yesterday.

“Otherwise, there will be difficulties adducing enough evidence that could stand the test of the court of law,” Dr Balakrishnan told an audience consisting of key commodities and finance players, as well as non-governmental organisations from the region, at the Grand Hyatt.

“So, this call for cooperation among the authorities is a sincere one; this is not something we can embark on unilaterally,” he said, adding that amendments would be made to the proposed Transboundary Haze Pollution Bill before it is likely tabled in Parliament later this year.

Singapore would also encourage other countries to consider formulating or revising their laws to prevent companies from exploiting resources unsustainably or harming their people, he said, without referring to any specific country.

Dr Balakrishnan’s comments came as a senior Indonesian official cited fragmented authority and bad governance as key challenges in sustainable resource management. The splitting of tasks and activities — such as control over spatial plans and land use conversions — has hampered the search for long-term solutions, said Mr Agus Purnomo, special staff to the President for Climate Change in Indonesia.

Dr Balakrishnan, who had previously expressed frustration over the lack of sharing of concession maps among countries affected by the haze, noted several major moves towards transparency, such as the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch monitoring system and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s (RSPO) recent resolution for its members to make concession boundaries publicly available on the RSPO website.

Asked by SIIA chairman SimonTay about evidence reaching the threshold demanded by the court, Dr Balakrishnan said it was up to a judge to decide but, “in the court of public opinion, that may be good enough”.

Meanwhile, captains of industry and experts also noted that more businesses were moving towards sustainability, but at different speeds.

With the world population rising — throwing up issues of food, water and energy security — commodities giant Olam International’s chief executive Sunny Verghese highlighted the tension between private profits and public losses, as well as the need to account for externalities.

A study in 2011 estimated that environmental damage amounted to nearly 40 per cent of the profit of the world’s 3,000 largest corporations.

Mr Verghese said his calculation of Olam’s footprint, in terms of water extraction, carbon dioxide and bio-waste emissions, was about half of the firm’s profits last year.

“So 50 per cent of the profit I’ve generated, I’ve actually taken from Mother Nature and depleted natural capital,” he said. “And, because its back office is not set up as yet, it’s not showing me those invoices.”

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