Wow, a lot of red here and that's all heat. So the weather forecast is about 13 degrees today, but you know what? It feels twice as hot.
The weather is terrible now. It's hot but there's no breeze left. That's the problem. It's very hot.
Do you have a cold? No, I don't have a cold. I have a cold. No, no, no cold.
The heat is hitting some of us harder. I'm going to show you how and why. I'm meeting this guy. He's the first Singaporean elected to the United Nations top climate science body.
And he's getting me to take him for a ride. Not a joyride though. Let's go to places in Singapore that show how different parts of the island experiences heat. Okay, so different parts of Singapore you say, some will be cooler, some will be hotter.
Exactly. How about we start by going to one of the coolest places in Singapore to live in. And this is apparently where it is. If you look around, what do you see? There's space.
Everything's a bit spread out. Space spread out. There's less concrete, there's less asphalt, more grass. Large gardens like what you see around us. All around us was surrounded by green.
So if we can take a look, the roof obviously super hot. Yep, but if you pan over to where the green spaces are, you'll notice it's significantly cooler. Yeah, it's almost a good 10 degrees cooler.
Generally... in Singapore, any place that has much more green spaces, much lower density development, it will be associated with cooler temperatures. There's more shade, less propensity to trap heat. So that helps to cool the environment substantially by more than a degree and a half degrees. Where would be the areas with high heat?
Let me show you. Okay. Hot isn't it?
Yeah, we've been here what, two, three minutes? And I'm already... I'm sweating. So I'm curious, I wonder how much hotter this spot is compared to where we just were at Bukit Timah.
Let's find out using the thermal camera. Let's measure it. The ground now is about 50. It is just like so much hotter. We measured the road just now. It was about 40, a good 10 degrees hotter.
Much more pavements here compared to where we were just now. You can tell that it's a... also trapping in heat during the day.
You see the high rise, high density public housing in this sense. You don't have many trees, you got limited grass, so you got less shade. We just came from a major road.
The road has a lot of cars, buses and trucks. As it burns petrol and diesel, it emits a lot of waste heat. All the stored heat trapped within urban areas is re-radiated out into the atmosphere and it drives the temperatures up for this area a couple of degrees Celsius warmer than, let's say, Bukit Timah. Wonderful, wonderful.
Thank you. While we're cooling off, shall I show you all the points about looking into heat vulnerability? This is a map of Singapore. We were here this morning in Bukit Timah.
Then we went to Jalan Besar in the afternoon and then now we're in Geylang. First map I want to show you is what it looks like right now in terms of the heat that we're facing in Singapore. It looks a uniform orange and red. Which are not very good colours. So the whole hot island.
Orange is about 29, red is about 30 degrees Celsius. You can see that some parts in the eastern part of Singapore are slightly hotter, together with Jurong as well. So this gives you the physical exposure.
This tells you the concentration of elderly population in Singapore. Oh! The darker the colours, generally the more elderly people live in that region of Singapore.
So where we were at in Bukit Timah, lighter green. Not that many, but if you look at all these dark green spots It's like Jurong, Clementi, the mature states right? All HDB or public housing that was built in the 70s and 80s People tend to stay there for the duration of their lives The older you are, the more at risk you are to problems of High heat stress or heat stroke This map, so the darker the colours That means there are more people who are unemployed And more people who have below average income People with less access to resources, less access to finances. So if you think twice about turning on the aircon, you tend to be more at risk of being exposed to heat.
And that's a problem in these locations. When we look at heat vulnerability, what we do is that we overlay the maps that I've showed you together with the physical exposure. Three of the neighbourhoods in Singapore arguably most vulnerable to heat. With the combination of not just higher temperatures, but also a proportionately high number of low-income households and elderly residents. Ironically, I guess the people who are more vulnerable are the ones who are more exposed to heat, but the ones who are less vulnerable are the ones who are slightly better off.
They have the resources to keep cool, but yet don't need to because they are living in a cooler environment. Exactly. I'm heading to one of the neighbourhoods, Jurong West.
where single mum Fion Lim lives in her two-room rental flat. Hello. Hi. Hi, Fion. Oh, can I come in?
Yes. Okay. Come in, please. Wow, okay.
So how many of you are living here? There's four of us living here, me and my boys. How have you been coping with the weather?
I can already feel it now that I'm in the room. Actually, I purchased another two more fans, which is inside the bedroom. Okay.
We're using the climate voucher. I have four fans, one in the living room, and then actually three in the bedroom. A fan for each of the boys. So there was only one fan last time?
Yeah, then sometimes my elders will learn to be in the living room doing drawing. Then he will say, Mum, can I have the fan please? You have to share the fan, not the fans.
Then we are like, no! We are sweating inside the room. So on top of that, actually we have an ice bag that my son is currently using. An ice bag?
Yes, we will put this bag inside the freezer. So when he feels that it's too hot, he will use this to cool down. Sometimes my boys will tend to be topless because of the hot weather.
They will say, Ma, I don't want to wear my shirt, I'm sweating. Even here talking to you now, I'm also sweating. We're both perspiring, right?
Yeah, I'm sick. I know. So what else have you thought of doing?
I've been trying to get an aircon through my social worker. Are you afraid that once you have the aircon, then your electricity bill will become quite high? Getting the aircon is only solely for the purpose of hoping that my boys can rest properly. Fionn and her boys are struggling with record temperatures in Singapore and they can't afford to install air conditioning.
So I'm bringing in an all-star team to see if we can help Fionn and her family beat the heat in more sustainable ways. Single mum Fionn and her three children are struggling to cope with rising temperatures. This room, the living room, dining room, kitchen, study room, is the everything room.
Yes. The whole room, I can feel that it's warmer already. The heat coming from the frying pan. Yeah, I can see you sweating also, right?
Yes, I'm sweating already. You know, outdoor is cooler. You can go for a walk or even shopping centre.
So why not go there more often? The nearest is the drone point. But with their squabbling, I will have a headache bringing them out. And how many times do you guys shower every day?
Some times, four times. Four times? Sometimes when you sweat, I tend to get itchy easily. This part, my neck, that time my chest. How long have you had this?
A few years. But it's worse when you are feeling hot? Yes.
Then what do you do? Sometimes I try my best not to scratch, but it's hard not to scratch. And sometimes I will apply the cream. My eldest and my youngest, they have eczema because of the sweat. At night, my boys will complain that it's too hot for them to fall asleep.
Especially my eldest, due to the itchiness, he will wake up in the middle of the night. Boys, time to sleep. I'm waiting!
It's about 9 o'clock at night and one would imagine that it would be cooler, right? It should be, but actually it feels just as warm as it did in the day. And inside the apartment, it's even more stuffy.
I guess the heat from the day has been trapped inside. To think that actually one quarter of all households in Singapore don't have an air conditioner. So they're having to live with that kind of heat every night. That can be quite unbearable. I want to help Fionn and her boys beat the heat and there's no better people to ask than these guys.
A crack team of experts that's embarked on a three-year project to study how Singaporean households cope with heat and to develop new and cheaper ways for them to do so. Hi Fionn! Hi Steve, nice to see you again. Okay so these guys, they got a whole bunch of equipment. So if it's okay, you let us get to work and then after that we can see what we can do?
Ah yes! Okay come, let's get to work guys. So we are planning to use the equipment to really measure the conditions of the house. That will help us redesign the space to make it more cooling.
One way to visualize wind flow or whether the lack of wind, right, is through a misting system like this. Oh the mist is just flowing around the pail. It's not going anywhere. Exactly because the air is stagnant there's not a lot of wind.
I guess if there was breeze coming in from the kitchen would it be something like that? Yeah and because the house is so small and they have There are so many things, you know, and you can kind of see the clutter around the house as well that is blocking the wind flow. I see. So we have demystified that situation. Good job there.
The wind velocity, the wind speed. As you can see, it's zero. The bedroom seems to be the warmest spot in the apartment. You can definitely feel the stagnant air, essentially it's hot air, recirculating again and again within the room. The fact that the clothes are immediately behind the fence, they reduce the wind coming out from the fan as well.
Look at the temperature released by the fridge. Yeah compared to the rest of the surrounding and this is almost up to 6, 7 degrees Celsius difference. Because everything around it is a different color but the middle where the fridge is is bright red.
Essentially for every electrical appliance they release heat, the wind can actually carry the heat around the house heating up the house as well. So actually the fridge isn't really in the best spot here. Yeah. The team's initial assessment? A hot and stuffy house in need of wind flow, often the case with small flats.
So it's been about a week since the team visited Fion's house and I'm here to find out what plans they cooked up for her. What are some of the solutions we have? So I think first and foremost they have to declutter the whole We see a lot of things stored at different parts of the home. Perhaps a wardrobe could be installed also.
Not only tidy up the place, but to promote wind flow. The family is using bedsheets which are made of synthetic material, which is not that cooling. So there are other types of material they can use. These are cotton, so these are more breathable and cooling.
There is something else that we can introduce and that is possibly the air cooler. The air cooler. And with this solution, you can easily bring the temperatures down at least 2 to 3 degrees Celsius.
I see. So it's like a fan, but it blows cooler air. Yes.
Because there's the water evaporation, right? Yes. And it consumes only maybe about a tenth of a typical air con energy consumption. So, having met with the researchers, my team and I now know what items we need to help Fionn and the boys basic over the heat. The question is, where are we going to find what we need, without having to break the bank?
My team and I found a local digital platform to help us source for the items we need to help cool down Fion's home. Good Hood helps match people looking for specific items with those looking to give them away. Lately, of course, we've been experiencing some really hot weather. Have you found an increase in the number of heat-related items that people are asking for? Yeah, heat-related items definitely have increased.
What? Systems. Yeah.
Clothing. Clothing? Bed-R-I-F-E-D. Or dry fit clothes to stay cool during the heat. How frequently are you getting these requests for these items?
So in the last month, we've had about 3 or 4 of such requests. And we think it's going to continue increasing. because the weather is quite hot these days. Yeah.
So who are the people that are asking for these items? The blue and orange charts verified. Blue generally mean the bottom 10% by household income.
Orange is the bottom 20%. Most of the requesters will be living in rental flats. But essentially, it is pretty much the lower economic group that is needing more of these items. Yeah. These are the items that Dolors has given.
So this is a cotton bed sheet, an air cooler and a foldable mattress. Fionn and the boys will be out of the house for the rest of the day, which means it's time to get started. First things first, giving the house a good clean. And moving stuff out of the way so that the wind can flow freely. Obviously he hasn't been watching TV for a while.
Yeah, how are they going to watch Talking Point? Next, moving the heat sources and hot spots. your electrical appliances further away from the bedroom. Take a look.
We're not entirely done yet, but it's about, I would say, 80% there. And you can see it's a big difference already. Just moving the furniture around, giving it a clean, and allowed for better ventilation and wind circulation.
And I can literally feel the wind. What a difference. Next up, the wardrobe. They are in the midst of fixing it up.
We'll put the clothes in the cupboard and be able to make the room a little bit more airy as well. Hopefully once we're done, they'll be able to have a good night's rest. Removing the fans next to the windows, so they can better draw in and circulate fresh air.
Air cooler in the bedroom. A change of bed sheets from synthetic ones to cotton sheets, which are more breathable and cooler. And a new foldable mattress, again to open up the area for more air circulation. We're also adding these blinds so that the family can still have their privacy, but now with a side of ventilation. After a good 10 hours...
We'll check back with Theon and the boys in a week to see how much of a difference these fixes have really made. But you know what, beyond just one household, I wonder what's being done to cool down Singapore as a whole. I'm spending my day with Singapore's town planners, starting in another one of the countries hotter areas.
We are doing a pilot right here in Tampines to test out the effectiveness of a cool coating paint. Cool coating paint? What is that? It's a type of paint that will reflect the heat from the sun. So the building will absorb less heat during the day and emit less heat at night.
On a sunny day, blocks painted with these paints could be up to 2 degrees cooler compared to those painted with regular coats. Is this going to be done for all HDB blocks whenever they are repainted? Oh no, we are doing a pilot for 130 blocks.
We have painted about 60 blocks. We are scheduled to end this pilot by the end of 2024. Okay, so basically if this pilot is successful, eventually all HDB flats when they are repainted could have this cool coat. Yeah, that's right.
...being used. Correct. There's more! For future towns, there's this.
It's a modelling tool and this tool actually enables all planners, architects and engineers to simulate the various environmental parameters and their combined effect on development. This is the design that we have developed for North Shore District. And we try to design the buildings in certain arrangements that helps the wind to penetrate easily into the whole district.
So with all of this, it means you can actually plan almost everything before you actually build the structure itself. Before we do the actual constructions, we can have this trial and error in the virtual world. This is the future of urban planning for Singapore. From the way the blocks were built, down to the number of trees, and where the shade hits the playground. These were designed with a modelling tube to maximise cooling down this neighbourhood.
It's been two weeks since we tried to help single mum Fionn and her family beat the heat. Hello! Hi!
I brought the whole gang back with me. And I'm back with the team for one final visit. Yeah, now the reading is around 29.8.
As compared to the previous time, which was around 32 degrees Celsius. We are getting a good breeze of about 0.5 meters per second of wind. Previously, there was no wind at all. It was zero meters per second. So this is a very, very good input value.
Which change do you think has been the best for you guys? I think the bedroom. It feels a lot less stuffy.
Actually, my boys, they can sleep better at night. My boys love the beach. Yes, I do. What about you, Austin?
What do you like best? The blinds. Because at the time when we got too much heat, then we had to put the curtains upwards. Then with the blinds, then we got more privacy. Oh, but also you can still get some air coming in right?
Yes. Do you still feel like you need an aircon? Oh definitely with the aircon will be better.
So that the boys can have a better night's sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. So I want to ask you guys, yeah, what do you think? Would you consider what we've done here a success story?
Yeah, definitely. I think it's a huge success. But she still wants an aircon, right? We asked her and she said, I still want an aircon, yeah.
So what do you think about that? Wow, it's nowhere near... what an air-con room would be.
It's significantly cooler than what the conditions were before. So in the context of rising urban heat in Singapore, I think what we have done in Fion's home is something that every household in Singapore is able to adopt. Understanding how to increase the ventilation, where to place your furnitures, where to relocate certain appliances. Basic things like opening the windows. These are things that we can do on a daily basis.