Climate Change, Resilience and Sustainable Development

The Centre is now deepening its research on climate change in the ASEAN region by examining climate change adaptation and sustainable development policies and practices across member states. The overall objective of this programme is to understand the governance of climate change initiatives in the region, and their impacts on regional and national climate change resilience building.

Core Research Areas

Auditing climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies at national level across the region
Examining regional cooperation mechanisms for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts
Analysing regional climate change cooperation on select sectors including transportation, energy and cities

In addition to analysing climate change adaptation in the context of reducing disaster risk and increasing resilience through sustainable practices, the Centre also looks into other relevant aspects including the development of smart cities, urban resilience, and the relevant environmental risks brought about by the 4^th Industrial Revolution.

Food Security

One of the hallmark programmes of the NTS Centre, this research now falls under the Climate Change theme.

Climate change implies risks to food production and food security given changing temperatures and less stable access to water. For smallholder agricultural communities, farming is becoming a less reliable source of food and income, driving some to hunger or even displacement. Cities, where two-thirds of the world population are expected to reside by 2050, are increasingly vulnerable as they source most of their food from rural areas or abroad. Weather disturbances create the risk that food shipments are disrupted, while volatility in global food prices could make food economically inaccessible. This line of research dives deep into the impact of climate on food security, and explores the opportunities for urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and agricultural innovation as means to address these challenges. Concrete activities include:

Collating and analysing best practices for how UPA can improve the resilience of cities as well as help achieve related long-term development goals (e.g. employment, poverty, food security);
Identifying relevant technologies that address the needs of particular UPA production systems;
Analysing factors in policy environments that enable or restrict these technologies from springing forth; and,
Providing recommendations for how UPA can be incorporated into urban planning, moving forward.

The Centre has previously worked on food security research focusing on three key areas; the impact of climate change on food production and availability; the dynamics of food stocks in a changing regional environment and dynamic modelling of food availability in Singapore. The project entailed the development of dynamic systemic models of food availability for Singapore, with models for pork, rice, chicken, eggs, vegetables and fish.

The S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the World Agricultural Forum, jointly organised the World Agricultural Forum (WAF) Conference 2017 in Singapore, themed “Solving the Triple Challenge to Agriculture: Trade, New Technologies and Food Security”. The Conference, which took place from 6-7 July 2017, provided a global platform for dialogue on how Governments, the Private Sector and Non-Governmental Organisations can better prepare for the future of agriculture and food trade in Asia. As a parallel affair, RSIS, together with the Kranji Countryside Association, co-organised the WAF 2017 Youth Engagement Event. This event brought together students from Junior Colleges and Tertiary Institutions in Singapore. Topics discussed included : “Agriculture in the Digital Age”; “Future Food”; and “Agriculture and You”. The Conference proceedings are accessible here.