The political issue I am exploring for my EA is the power dynamics of different actors (particularly non-state actors) acting on climate change mitigation and/or adaptation in Singapore.
There are several reasons I am interested in this issue.
- I am interested in how power works within a state, particularly a state like Singapore where the government has a lot of legitimacy and power.
- I hope to contribute to the fight to mitigate or adapt to climate change, and working with real-life examples of climate activism will presumably teach me more than newspaper articles or online courses. It will also allow me to gain more of a local context, as a lot of information online focuses on climate activism on a larger scale or in the West. It also builds up on the environmentalist work I already do, making me more grounded as an environmentalist.
- I want to explore how the Singaporean government feels about or responds to the actions of NGOs, which may challenge the legitimacy of what the government does. This is going into civics and culture a bit, but I want to understand better not only how global politics concepts work, but how the Singaporean government works.
- Because Singapore is quite a small country, I assume that individual or NGO action may achieve more (change more minds in government and among citizens, or spark grassroots efforts) than in a large country like the UK. It would be interesting to explore this hypothesis.
- It would be interesting to see what the government is and isn’t doing for climate action. For example, I learned in Geography class that the government is doing a lot of adaptation measures, but not much for mitigation