The Sustainability Youth Festival 2026 - Ms Goh Hanyan

1. Good afternoon. I thank EB Impact for inviting me to join you at the second edition of The Sustainability Youth Festival (TSYF). I attended the first one last year and am glad to see the festival growing from strength to strength. It is truly encouraging.

2. Looking around the room, I am reminded of why events like this matter. Ground-up initiatives like TSYF bring together youth, government, businesses, and civil society towards a shared goal of building a sustainable future and reflect our commitment towards collective action.

Why Adaptation Matters Now

3. Climate change is no longer a distant concern — its impacts are already felt by many countries around the world. For Singapore, the stakes are high: rising sea levels and temperatures, more intense, unpredictable floods and storms are challenges we must address today.

4. Reducing our emissions to mitigate climate change is necessary, but it is not enough on its own. We have to build our capacity to adapt and respond to environmental changes that are already underway, and to do so with creativity and resolve.

You Can Make an Impact

5. Singapore has designated 2026 as the Year of Climate Adaptation to increase awareness on the importance of climate adaptation and galvanise collective action. The Government is also partnering businesses and communities to develop Singapore’s first National Adaptation Plan – our long-term strategy to build a climate-ready nation and an articulation of how different stakeholders can play a role.  

6. This year's TSYF rightly places climate adaptation at the fore, highlighting how communities and individuals can respond to climate change and showcasing innovative solutions to our environmental challenges.

7. A feature of TSYF is its emphasis on making sustainability practical, relatable, and actionable for young people. This is the kind of community engagement and activation we need.

8. For example, the OCBC TSYF Changemaker Challenge enables ideas to be turned into action. I understand that over 35 youth-led projects addressing real-world sustainability challenges were submitted this year. This demonstrates the energy and ownership that our young people have, in designing and implementing solutions in their own communities. I commend every team for the thought and effort behind your work.

9. I am also encouraged by the new OCBC TSYF Creator category that engages primary school students to design interactive booths to communicate sustainability messages. It is never too early to be a changemaker, and seeing our youngest participants also have the agency to respond to our environmental challenges gives me confidence about the future.

Building Towards a Green Future

10. Beyond today's festival, there are a few ways that each of you can help contribute to developing a more sustainable and climate-resilient Singapore.

11. First, build the skills required for the green economy. Singapore's transition to a green economy is creating diverse career opportunities across many emerging sectors that require specialised skills. Today's Sustainability Starter Kit is a good starting point — I encourage all of you to engage openly, ask questions, be curious, and explore career pathways available to you.

12. Second, contribute your ideas and perspectives to shape our policies. This is the Year of Climate Adaptation. The Government will conduct a series of engagements, including focus group discussions and a public exhibition. Come forward and let us know what you think about the issue. Initiate things in your community on how we can collectively strengthen climate resilience and safeguard our way of life. I hope we can continue to thrive 10, 20 years from now, and not be confined by the heat outside from doing the things we want to do. I encourage all of you to look out for these opportunities and I look forward to seeing you there.

13. Third, initiate ground-up community projects. This month, MSE introduced a $5 million Climate Adaptation Package under the SG Eco Fund to fund projects that promote awareness and drive action on climate adaptation topics such as heat resilience, flood protection, water conservation, and supporting local produce. If you have ideas for climate adaptation projects that engage the community, please step forward and consider tapping on the climate adaptation package.

Closing

14. To EB Impact and all the partners who have come forward to make TSYF 2026 possible, thank you for creating this platform and for showing us what we can achieve if we come together. The solutions to our climate challenges will not come from any single government or organisation. It will have to come from all of us working together. We are all part of this collective effort. Let us continue building our sustainable future together.

15. Thank you.