Gen Y Speaks: Climate change is one of humankind’s ‘gravest challenges’, but is everyone on the same page?

When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong first announced that he would be speaking about climate change in his National Day Rally speech, I was pleasantly surprised.

I recently returned from studying abroad in the United Kingdom where the urgency of climate change was something that was often spoken about, and where conversations about how to mitigate climate change were common among my peers.

However, back home, discussions about the environment, especially among my parents, are usually met with ambivalence and indifference. So I have grown to believe that many Singaporeans are not too concerned about climate change.

That is why I had not expected that such a large part of the PM Lee’s speech would be focused on addressing climate change in Singapore, and I was curious to hear what he had to say about the issue.

In his speech delivered on Sunday (Aug 18), Mr Lee was firm when he said that “climate change may seem abstract and distant for many of us, but it is one of the gravest challenges facing humankind”.

He later listed three strategies for addressing climate change in Singapore: We have to understand, mitigate and adapt to it.

On the mitigation and adaptation front, I was encouraged and reassured by the plans outlined to ensure that Singapore can cope with rising sea levels given our status as a low-lying island.

I also appreciated the hard language that Mr Lee used to speak about the matter as it served as a necessary wake-up call that climate change is not something to be treated lightly.

However, when it came to understanding climate change, I wished that the PM Lee had acknowledged that climate change is a generational issue and awareness of its severity is likely lacking among the older generation.

In his speech, Mr Lee highlighted the efforts by young Singaporeans who have been doing their part to make Singapore more sustainable. He ended that segment with a call for more Singaporeans to be “problem-solvers” for climate change, stating that this is the “grand challenge” for our generation.

Hearing this disappointed me, for he did not acknowledge that the older generation can also play their part to mitigate the effects of climate change for future generations.

Climate change is often framed as a problem for the younger generations to solve, and I think that in the process, we have missed an opportunity to underline the importance oftacklingthe issue as an intergenerational responsibility.

This belief of mine was confirmed by the contrasting reactions my step-father and I had to the announcements that Mr Lee outlined on combating climate change.

When the PM Lee said that about S$100 billion over the next 50 to 100 years will be needed to implement long-term solutions to mitigate rising sea levels in Singapore, I started to clap in front of the television screen.

Meanwhile, my step-father expressed shock and irritation that his tax payer dollars will be channelled into this venture.

“Why should we spend so much of our taxpayer money on this?” he said, clearly agitated by the news. He later added dismissively that “Singapore is too small, nothing we do will make a big difference”.

To him, all this talk about climate change pales in importance compared to bread-and-butter issues. More important to my step-father, who is 63 this year, was the announcement by Mr Lee to raise the retirement and re-employment ages to 65 and 70, as it has a direct impact on his near future.

By this point, I had begun to sense that his interest in the rally had started to wane as the climate change portion of the rally continued, and I mentally noted this as another failure to communicate the salience of the issue to my parents.

That being said, in some ways, I completely understand their apathy. For them, 50 to 100 years extends far beyond their lifetime, too far to be too concerned over what the consequences could be.

Additionally, my parents grew up during a time where the immediate priorities were to put food on the table to feed their families.

So they find it difficult to understand why my peers and I are so concerned over something as abstract as climate change.

I also know that secretly, my parents think that it is a privilege for young people to be concerned about something they think as “trivial”, because to them, climate change is a concern for the distant future.

For instance, when I chastise them about taking too many plastic bags they do not need, I can see their eyes roll because they think that environmental politics is a small matter in the grand scheme of things.

However, for me, the problem of climate change doesn’t feel that far in the future. In 50 years, it is not unlikely that I will still be alive to experience the shifting climates that PM Lee spoke about in his speech.

Additionally, I now have a niece and nephew to think about and when I consider the future that we are potentially leaving them with, I feel alarmed and ashamed.

When I speak to some of my friends about this, they also share similar stories about how their parents are either unconcerned or unaware of the severity of climate change. One particular friend said that although her parents know that it is a serious issue, they believe the problem is too far away to warrant any immediate concern.

That is why I think it is important for everyone to be on the same page when it comes to climate change.

Not because I think that the older generation should bear the brunt of the responsibility on the state of our environment today, but because I know that climate change is a complex problem and we need all hands on deck to work towards a solution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tessa Oh joined TODAY as a reporter in July 2019 after graduating with a Masters of Arts in English Language and Literature from University of Edinburgh.