Grateful for the opportunity to share about the Getting to Zero card game with youth leaders at the 2023 edition of the Our Singapore Leadership Programme.
As always, rich discussions were generated from the post-game conversation with the participants. This is especially so given that we had many industries/ sectors represented by the youths present in the room, each bringing their own perspectives to the table.
When asked about which climate policies the participants thought would be the most effective in getting Singapore to net zero, it was unsurprising that the most popular policy was Carbon Tax. In the words of one the participants, "Money makes the world go round!" Indeed, it is when a value is being placed on emissions that society is increasingly incentivised to take climate action.
One of the groups shared that they chose the ASEAN Power Grid, Carbon Tax and Global Cooperation as their top three climate policies, with the commonality of these policies being that they go beyond the national scale. Additonally, the ASEAN Power Grid enables developed countries to reduce their climate impact while facilitating capacity building for their less developed counterparts (a win-win situation).
Interestingly, Car-Free Days was considered to be an effective policy though it has one of the smallest scale of impact among all the climate policy options. One participant's rationale was that this initiative could potentially help instil the mindset that individuals have a important part to play in dealing with climate change. It is also one of the easiest policy to enact, and is good for both the environment and the economy. A low-hanging fruit if you may.
The Reforestation card was also raised in this discussion. The effectiveness of the OneMillionTrees Movement was questioned, given the many variables that affect the success of the movement in sequestering carbon. One such variable would be the species of trees being planted (which determines the amount of time needed for the sapling to be fully grown). Planting one million trees in a consolidated area versus scattered all over the island would also yield vastly different results.
I enjoyed the "interrogation" by the participants on the specific policies, where we went into the technicalities of the policies in terms of feasibility, scalability and more. And that is truly the beauty of this game -- that the gameplay is simple yet provides a really good starting point for deeper conversations.
I was glad to hear that the participants saw this game's value in planting a seed in players' minds and getting them started on their foray into sustainability-related issues, all while letting them make meaning of the issues themselves (instead of having someone dictate what is right or wrong).
We ended off the session with the following poll:
Some participants' reflections on how much they feel they could contribute to Singapore's net zero goal:
A participant who chose neutral shared concerns about not necessarily having legislation power/resources as a youth even despite having a track record to show for.
Another participant who chose agree brought up the fact that youths could have implicit influence simply by bringing in these conversations (on sustainability) into their respective fields. Youths have made significant strides in mainstreaming discussions on sustainability. By playing the long game, it is undeniable that youths are a force to be reckoned with.
I was deeply inspired by one of the participants who chose strongly agree as her response to this poll. She shared that youth leaders have the responsibility to bring optimism to the conversation. In fact, it would be dangerous if the majority have a doomsday mindset, because how would we be able to inspire future generations to step into the sustainability scene with an apocalyptic rhetoric? She also mentioned that we should never assume that someone else will solve this problem and hence not take any action. The baseline is that we never know the kind of impact we can have or how we might be inspiring others as we journey along in our respective fields, so always always stay positive even when it seems like we are not making a difference.
We rounded off the workshop on a very positive and inspirational note, that our youths can rise up to the challenge in tackling climate change when given sufficient support in acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills and tools. Once we taste small successes, these small wins would then give us greater motivation to forge ahead on this uncharted path.
The workshop was an extremely fruitful experience for me, and I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to interact with and learn from the participants while sharing about sustainability education. 😊
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