The city-state will aim to lower total emissions to between 45 million to 50 million tonnes by 2035, the National Climate Change Secretariat said in a statement yesterday, outlining a new strategy submitted to the UN under the Paris Agreement.

Emissions in 2023 were 74.3 million tonnes, according to data from the European Commission, and a previous goal set a target of 60 million tonnes by 2030.

Hitting the lower bound of the new 2035 target would keep Singapore “on a linear path to our net zero target in 2050,” the secretariat said.

However, the nation has disadvantages in deploying renewables and the “pace of decarbonisation depends heavily on developments in nascent mitigation technologies and international collaboration,” it said.

Singapore, which currently relies on natural gas for over 90% of its electricity, is aiming to import cleaner power from neighbouring nations, and also studying the deployment of technologies including nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage.

“The devil is in the details,” said Melissa Low, research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s centre for nature-based climate solutions.

“We don’t know how they’re going to get there, whether by means of actual decarbonisation, or via removals and offsets or a combination of both,” she said.

The UN has urged nations to continue to devise more ambitious plans – known as Nationally Determined Contributions – to reduce emissions by the mid-2030s, even as most countries missed an initial Feb 10 deadline.

The strategies are “blueprints for stronger economies and societies,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN’ climate body said in a post to LinkedIn.

“They should cover every sector of the economy and every greenhouse gas,” said Stiell.