(May 18): Singapore’s state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte is set to miss its 2030 carbon-emissions target amid the global turmoil and artificial intelligence’s rising demand for energy.
Speaking at the opening dinner for Ecosperity Week 2026, Temasek’s chief executive officer Dilhan Pillay said the firm was unlikely to meet its long-set aim of slashing emissions attributed to its portfolio to half of 2010 levels by 2030.
Exposure to aviation and power generation were the main reasons for the likely miss, but Temasek will continue to target net zero carbon emissions by 2050, Pillay said. Its major holdings include Singapore Airlines Ltd as well as energy providers SP Group and Sembcorp Industries Ltd.
Temasek joins a host of companies including HSBC Holdings Plc that have weakened or ditched climate targets since last year. The reasons given have varied from difficulties in reducing emissions in hard-to-abate sectors to concerns around acquiring enough renewable energy to cope with the data-centre frenzy.
Temasek has struggled to reduce its reported annual portfolio emissions since the start of the decade. It reported emissions of 21 million tons of CO2 equivalent in its last sustainability report, versus 22 million tons in 2011.
“Today the world has fundamentally changed,” Pillay said. “The global energy transition has entered a far more complex and uncertain phase and geopolitics is reshaping markets.”
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Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence may offer hope to cut pollution, he said.
“AI is reshaping economies and, in time, societies at extraordinary speeds,” Pillay said, adding it could eventually lead to technologies that boost efficiencies and find new solutions to climate problems. “But in the near term it adds further complexity to an already difficult transition.”
Disruptions caused by events in the Gulf are a reminder about the vulnerability of fossil-fuel supplies, he said. “This makes the case for renewable energy even stronger, not just as a climate solution but as a pathway to greater energy security, resilience and long-term strategic competitiveness,” he added.
See also: Hong Kong’s financial secretary calls Trump’s climate pullback ‘disappointing’
Temasek will continue to invest in emissions-reduction technologies and services, and provide capital to environmentally friendly projects to help make them commercially viable, he said.
Uploaded by Evelyn Chan
