I will be discussing about the effectiveness of solutions – government, community and individuals aspect.

Government

• Solutions tend to lean towards external behavioural factors e.g. via taxes and laws.
• Fails to consider the internal aspects that are as important or even more important than external ones. Internal attitudes, values and perceptions are the main causes of climate change as analysed. However, they complement community internal solutions for the best outcomes.
• A more structured framework i.e. could be used for these governmental interventions that are targeted on external factors of behaviour (ABA model).

Most of the steps seem to have been achieved by the Singapore government:

What is absent now seems to be Step 4, where the government should check on whether the punishments and incentives are effective given current industrial conditions and proceed back to Step 1 with successfully proven attempts.

It is also important to consider internal factors e.g. self-efficacy (addressed by community methods).

Community

• Targets most of the internal behavioural factors e.g. attitudes, norms, self-efficacy and perceptions. However, values are a more innate thing and cannot be changed as readily. Sustained community efforts, with closer interactions are needed in order to shift values.
• These internal behavioural solutions, when coupled with governmental external interventions, lead to desired behavioural change.
• However, conditions for good community management of this common pool resource are largely unmet:
  1. Greenhouse gas sink changes cannot be easily managed and monitored; no clear boundaries too.
  2. Singapore’s population community is increasing and volatile; not everyone is as well-connected with one another.
  3. Not everyone has the chance in participating in rule-making, members cannot monitor and enforce rules against others that easily.

To tackle these, we could communicate a more observable resource to be protected e.g. electricity bills rather than the larger carbon sink.

Also, we could break the general Singapore community up into smaller units e.g. by regions – to promote these large-scale movements. This could lead to greater sharedness of norms in a closer group; people could have more opportunity in rule setting too!

There are smaller-scale initiatives that are already being carried out by smaller community units. We can capitalise on them. E.g. Grassroots organisations and CDC staff conduct house visits to explain the impact of simple lifestyle changes to residents. With these efforts in bringing about a closer-knit community, innermost value changes are more likely.

Finally, there could be increased community participation via:

1. Public hearing (voice opinions)
2. Stakeholder negotiation (to weigh members’ interests)
3. Participatory planning (for the process of designing and implementing a program).

Individuals

• How you frame environmental prompts to these individuals is important.
• More incentives to be given to individuals for behaviours e.g. purchase of environmentally-friendly products and conservation of electricity bills.

E.g. under the current “Energy- Saving Challenge”, individuals who cut their electricity bills only stand a chance to win attractive prizes. Instead, we could peg incentives and rewards to electricity consumption.

Everyone that hits a certain minimum benchmark will be entitled. This could motivate individuals more as they could better see the “fruits of their labor” in cutting electricity use. The comic below is an exaggeration, but hopefully clearer behaviour-reward link will lead to more electricity-saving behaviours!