Remarks by Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean at Rwanda's National Carbon Markets Framework Launch

Remarks by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean at Rwanda’s National Carbon Markets Framework Launch at UNFCCC COP28

Her Excellency, Dr Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, Minister for Environment, Republic of Rwanda

My friends from Rwanda and from Singapore, and other guests today.

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Rwanda and Singapore are long time, steady friends and I am delighted to be here today to launch this event which marks a new phase in our good friendship. I would like to express my thanks to our friends from Rwanda for inviting me to join this occasion.

Let me start by congratulating you on this momentous first step that Rwanda is taking to participate in carbon markets aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Climate change is a pernicious, global challenge. Emissions from one country affect every other country, and for this reason, international cooperation is key.

Multilateralism was the spirit in which Article 6 of the Paris Agreement was established, to allow countries to pursue voluntary cooperative approaches, and in doing so achieve greater climate ambition than they could on their own. Singapore played a small part in getting Article 6 from an Article in the agreement into the implementation phase, which will allow us to turn Article 6 into reality. We co-facilitated the discussions on implementation at the UNFCCC conferences. Carbon markets have great potential to channel investments toward additional mitigation outcomes that would not have been otherwise feasible.

Singapore and Rwanda, as fellow small states, share a close working relationship. We have cooperated in areas such as fintech and cybersecurity, and we had a very successful fintech festival in Rwanda this year. I am delighted that our countries are now deepening our cooperation through carbon market collaboration.

Singapore’s approach to this emerging partnership will be underpinned by investment, interlinkages, and resilience.

First, investment.

Singapore stands ready to work with our companies to invest in Rwanda’s climate future. The Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) had earlier this year in October 2023 signed an MOU with the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, to deliver projects in areas such as carbon trading. Our companies are keen to explore carbon market projects in Rwanda. We stand ready to work with the Rwandan government to identify projects of highest impact that we can jointly explore.

Second, interlinkages.

Singapore is a vibrant carbon services and trading hub, and upholds high environmental integrity standards. We are ready to work with Rwanda to link its carbon credit supply to the global market through Singapore.

Third, resilience.

Under our Article 6.2 bilateral approaches, Singapore is prepared to contribute 5% of our share of carbon credit proceeds to support climate adaptation in Rwanda, ensuring that projects have broader sustainable developmental benefits.

As our two countries sign this Memorandum of Understanding on Article 6 collaboration today, we mark the start of a new chapter of bilateral cooperation; one that addresses our shared challenge of climate change.

Singapore looks forward to working closely with Rwanda to operationalise high-integrity carbon markets that can drive greater mitigation ambition, create new livelihoods in the green economy, and advance our sustainable development goals.

Thank you.