Mr Speaker, I believe many parents of young children shared my family’s relief when the haze finally dissipated over the last weeks. Finally, my daughter could once again run free outdoors. The haze forces similar decisions on us all. Parents have to decide whether their children should play outdoors. Older people weigh the risk of going out. A worker whose job keeps him outside has fewer options than someone who can close the windows and work from home.
I support the Bill’s objective of strengthening corporate accountability for transboundary haze. Singapore's wider economic and environmental choices can also contribute to prevention, alongside the powers we are considering today.
As Singapore invests in meeting its climate commitments, we should actively seek credible opportunities to reduce the risk of haze-causing fires in our region. When choosing suitable forest and peatland carbon projects to buy credits from, we should consider their potential to reduce haze-causing fires.
Carbon revenue and practical protection
When forests and peatlands burn, they release carbon and produce smoke that can travel far beyond their boundaries. For projects conserving these landscapes, preventing fires protects the carbon benefits they claim. It can also help address a source of haze affecting nearby communities and people downwind.
Peatlands show how these interests are connected. They naturally hold water, but drainage can leave the peat dry enough to burn underground. Maintaining water levels is therefore a practical part of protecting the stored carbon and reducing fire risk.
That protection requires continuing work. Water-management measures need maintenance. Patrol and fire-response teams need staff, equipment and training. Those costs continue between haze seasons.
A project conserving these landscapes can earn income from carbon credits if it meets the relevant standards. That income can help cover these recurring costs and sustain the protection on which its carbon claims depend.
At the Katingan peatland project in Central Kalimantan, an external verifier reviewed the financial analysis and identified credit sales as a major source of project funding. The verifier also observed fire-prevention and firefighting measures, including monitoring, training and community awareness.
The question for Singapore is how our purchases can support that continuing protection.
Singapore’s purchasing choices
Singapore is already a buyer in the carbon credit market. In September 2025, the Government announced contracts worth around S$76 million for nature-based carbon credits from projects in Ghana, Paraguay and Peru.
I ask the Minister to take account of a project’s credible potential to reduce haze-causing fires when selecting suitable regional carbon projects for purchase. Those projects must meet our carbon-integrity requirements, with price and project risk also taken into account.
How we buy those credits matters. Buying an already-issued credit from an intermediary need not provide new money to the project. An agreement to buy credits from a project over several years can give its operator a clearer basis for planning the staff and maintenance it needs.
Will the Government consider longer-term purchase agreements for suitable regional projects where greater certainty of income can sustain fire prevention? This allows us to simultaneously tackle the complimentary goals of environmental protection and haze prevention. It should examine how protection costs will be met between credit payments, alongside value for money and safeguards if the project fails to deliver the promised credits.
The people carrying out that work need a lasting economic stake in maintaining protection. Where a project relies on local patrols or water management, its budget and agreements with communities should make clear how that work will be paid for.
These commitments need to be checked over time. Existing carbon standards already provide for fire-risk assessment and management plans. For relevant projects, it would be reasonable for the Government to assess whether prevention is adequately resourced and verify that measures are implemented and maintained. Because the carbon benefits depend on that continuing protection, these checks should apply both to the Government’s own purchases and to credits it recognises under our carbon-credit framework.
Drainage on neighbouring land can affect a project’s water conditions. While operators should be held accountable for measures within their control, our assessment of a carbon project also needs to consider these wider risks and whether the necessary cooperation has been secured. My colleague Dr Jamus Lim will discuss the wider question of prevention beyond concession boundaries.
Regional cooperation
Singapore’s developing carbon-credit cooperation with Indonesia is an opportunity to examine how these arrangements could work in practice. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in July this year, with the aim of working towards an Article 6 Implementation Agreement under the Paris (Climate) Agreement framework. I ask whether both countries can explore suitable forest and peatland projects with credible carbon benefits and the added potential to contribute to haze prevention.
Indonesian communities also suffer from the fires and smoke. They should have a voice in project design and a clear understanding of the responsibilities and benefits being agreed. Their participation will be essential to making that protection last.
Transparency in government engagement
Mr Speaker, I now turn to a different point. Transparency also helps build public confidence in the Government’s engagement with entities under suspicion. I commend the Government’s resolve in meeting senior members of ten companies potentially linked to haze-causing fires on 28 October. Since then, social media posts have appeared highlighting that several of the companies had former high-ranking public officials serving as employees or directors.
Speaking to reporters after that meeting, Senior Minister K Shanmugam said the exercise was about establishing the facts, not finding scapegoats. I appreciated that fair-minded assurance. However, there will likely be many more engagements between the Government and well-resourced companies in the coming period, with a great deal at stake. We would do well to use this opportunity to reinforce our reputation for transparency and integrity.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Recommendation on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying and Influence provides a useful reference. It calls for the public disclosure of information about who seeks to influence government decisions, on whose behalf, which public authorities are approached, and what policy matters are involved.
The Workers’ Party has made the case for lobbying transparency in this House before. It was part of our Party’s 2025 Manifesto. I would therefore ask whether the Government has considered strengthening transparency requirements concerning lobbying activities, particularly on issues of significant public interest, such as the haze.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, to conclude, the work of protecting these landscapes needs to continue between haze seasons. Singapore’s future carbon purchases should take account of how a project will sustain that work, and the credible contribution it can make to preventing haze-causing fires.
Our wider response to haze should also uphold transparency and integrity in the Government’s engagement with companies.
Those efforts should serve the people living beside these forests, and the families here who want their children to breathe clean air.
Notwithstanding my questions and clarifications, I support the bill.
