Lim Tean Says Singapore’s Population Growth Must Stop ‘To Ensure a Sustainable Future’

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In a Sunday morning (August 21) Facebook post, lawyer and opposition leader Lim Tean argued against a higher population in Singapore, writing: “To ensure a sustainable future, we must stop our population growth !

This appears to be related to an earlier article the day before, in which Mr Lim wrote that spending $100 billion to fight climate change is ‘unnecessary…as we destroy green space to build more homes for a larger population.

Both posts were widely commented on.

In his National Day Rally speech in 2019, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said around $100 billion or more may be needed to protect the country from rising sea levels resulting from climate change..

Singapore is particularly vulnerable to this problem, but engineering solutions are available to protect the country’s coastline. These solutions come at a cost, however, Prime Minister Lee added at the time.

Mr. Lim, the general secretary of the People’s Voice party, claimed in his message that Singapore was “being transformed into a barren, soulless concrete monstrosity” with “endless construction…everywhere.

“Let’s not fall into gimmicks and false narratives. Pretty sounding slogans and fancy green names for new housing developments do nothing to ensure sustainability.

I’m sure our next generation doesn’t want to live in a crowded, joyless society full of skyscrapers, MRT stations and roads in the sky. They cherish our green spaces because they know that when you destroy nature, the future is not sustainable,” he added.

“How much will it cost to protect against sea level rise? I guess it’s probably S$100 billion over 100 years, most likely more,” the Prime Minister had said in 2019, adding, “If we only have 10 years to solve the problem, we won’t have have the time or resources to do so. But since this is a 50-100 year problem, we can implement a 50-100 year solution.

Shortly after Prime Minister Lee’s speech, the then second finance minister, Lawrence Wong, said that the S$100 billion funding for climate change initiatives would come from borrowing and reserves.

Netizens commenting on Mr. Lim’s posts tended to agree with him.