Joint Vision Statement
Singapore and Australia share longstanding economic, strategic, and people-to-people ties, underpinned by the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Our strong bilateral relations and multiple shared interests at regional and global fora have led us to work together to shape a sustainable future for our nations through a bilateral Green Economy Agreement (GEA).
In commencing negotiations, both parties are embarking on a world-first agreement that combines trade, economic and environmental objectives. The GEA will deepen our bilateral partnership through strengthened economic and environmental relations while furthering engagement on existing areas of cooperation, such as our Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in low-emissions solutions. Our vision is to enhance the livelihood of our communities whilst transitioning to greener economies and addressing the challenges of climate change.
The GEA will deliver on this vision by reducing barriers to the trade in environmental goods and services; fostering convergence on regulations and standards; exploring new opportunities in green growth sectors; adopting environmental measures that facilitate trade and investment in a manner consistent with existing international trade and investment obligations; and ensuring our smooth and inclusive transition into a green economy that creates good jobs for our people.
We envisage an agreement that is practical, ambitious, and innovative, where technologies catalyse business and commercial opportunities, intergovernmental and public-private partnerships implement new cooperative projects, pathfinder initiatives scale up to benefit the broader region, and effective solutions assists us achieve our ambition of net zero emissions as soon as possible.
Our joint work will result in practical applications and benefits to the real economy and workforce. They aim to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon and green technologies, low-carbon and renewable energy, and decarbonised production processes. Our industry consultations and pilot proof of concept projects will ensure the GEA supports job creation, supply chains, and market development in green sectors. Drawing on cutting-edge knowledge, the GEA will improve the compatibility of our systems to ease doing business and trading in environmental goods and services across our borders.
Our broader aspiration is for the GEA to serve as a pathfinder that contributes to multilateral and regional policy development by establishing policies, standards and initiatives that will not only create good jobs in green growth sectors, but also strengthen environmental governance and global capacity to address environmental issues, in particular climate change. We seek to do this by exploring creative ways to encourage the adoption of common standards and practices with high environmental integrity, while upholding a rules-based and open trading system.