 Good morning. I'm Ernie Bauer, the Senior Advisor and Director of the Southeast Asia Program at CSIS and honored to be here with Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who's the Singaporean Minister for Environment and Water Resources. Thank you for joining us today. Minister, could you tell us a little bit about what's your mission here with the major economic major economies forum and what is Singapore? What's your what's your participation in that forum about? Well, we have a very tiny country an emerging developing country. It's done well recent years but we remain very vulnerable to climate change. So this is more than a passing interest on our part. What we hope for is that there will be a multilateral rules-based global regime which will apply to everyone across the board and that will be fair and give all of us, especially those of us in the developing world, space to grow. Negotiations are difficult. As I said earlier, there are problems of alignment but nevertheless it's important that all of us keep faith with the process and keep talking and keep working towards something worthwhile and something achievable for the future. Otherwise, this is the ultimate tragedy of the comments. You're taking Singapore's national experience in the environment and sort of injecting it into the international talks. As Minister of the Environment for Singapore, what more can you do? I mean Singapore's got it seems a quite an impressive record on environment. What are your priorities? Well, we are very small so it's much easier to do things on a small scale. Let me just recount our story with water. In 1942, the British surrendered to the Japanese army, although the British troops in Singapore outnumbered the Japanese troops. The reason they did that was the Japanese troops had captured our water reservoirs and treatment plants in Johor. That experience has meant that water has always been an existentialistic issue, life and death, war and peace kind of issue for Singapore. So the key imperative in my ministry has been to ensure the adequacy, the security and the safety of water supplies. Just about a decade ago, a revolution in technology allowed us to use reverse osmosis to desilinate water as well as to recycle used water. That technological change immediately desecoritized the issue of water because from henceforth, the availability of water is related directly to the availability and cost of energy. That's a major change. The other key learning point in the case of Singapore is that we were able to persuade our population, and this is a political challenge, but we were able to persuade our population that all of us have to pay the true cost of generating the next drop of water using the best available technology. So in other words, water in Singapore is not subsidized. In fact, we have a water conservation tax over and above that. That has created a system where people conserve water, we don't waste water, we treat it as a strategic precious asset. The economics of it works so that we now have a sector in which the private sector also enters, the government enters into PPPs, public-private partnerships with the private sector, they produce water, we use it for our population, our population pays economically rational prices. So if we look at this as a model, the proper application of technology, sound economics and a working political relationship has led to a system where what used to be a strategic constraint is now a strategic opportunity. So Singapore companies are now exploring opportunities all over the world in water technology, and we've been able to literally reverse a weakness into a potential strength. You've said, extrapolating on that, you've said water is directly linked to energy. Yes. That's the key piece of the jigsaw that has occurred in the last 10 years. But you've even gone further, I think, and you said energy is then the key for water, for food security, even national security. Could you talk about that in sort of a regional sense? Well, if you look within Southeast Asia, at this point in time, Southeast Asia is still a net energy positive. If you look at the hydrocarbon stores, natural gas, coal, oil, hydroelectricity, as a region, ASEAN is net positive. In fact, the next development, we hope that there will be an ASEAN energy grid, which will allow us then to share and synergize the sources of energy and to move into cleaner. So, for instance, these hydroelectricity in, say, Indonesia, Malaysia in the Mekong, Laos, Cambodia, geothermal energy in the Philippines. If we can work together, get a grid going, export electrons rather than molecules of hydrocarbons, we can make ourselves more secure and more competitive as a region. So that's the other big thing to chase in Southeast Asia. You've been a great friend of the United States. Singapore has been a great friend of the United States. What can you tell us about the perspective of the United States on these issues, water, energy, food security in the region? Well, I would say first that water, energy, food and trade are essential items. It's the lifeblood of Southeast Asia. I would suggest that these are key items that should be on the United States agenda as well. And your friends in Southeast Asia, hopefully United States will continue to remain engaged in this region, to continue to invest in Southeast Asia, to exploit technologies, as well as to look for business opportunities for your companies. I think there's a lot more opportunities that can be harvested from this field. And we hope the United States will continue being engaged. Thank you, Minister. I have to say, if you don't mind a question about politics. Not at all. Not at all. Last night, Prime Minister Najib, right next door to you, really shocked a lot of us with saying that he would repeal the ISA and Burma announced that it would allow foreign websites to be viewed in Burma. And you guys have had your own sort of an interesting election, where the opposition gained more seats than before. What's happening politically in Southeast Asia? How do you rate the tea leaves? Well, Southeast Asia, and Singapore in particular, have been making rapid progress over the last few decades. Our political system is maturing. Our electorate is more educated, more demanding, more sophisticated. So in that sense, the electoral politics in Singapore is becoming less exceptional. As it becomes less exceptional, it stands to reason it will become more competitive. And so, for instance, the results we got at the recent general election, when we won 60% of the popular vote. Well, in a less exceptional political system, 60% would be a landslide. And to be honest with you, in fact, this was slightly higher than what I had personally anticipated. And I think even maintaining that level for future elections will be a challenge. But the positive side of it is that this really reflects a maturing of the political system. And a more questioning, demanding, sophisticated electorate is actually a good thing. Because it will force greater accountability and push all of us to deliver services and to enhance the political system at an even higher level of demand than what we had been subjected to so far. In other words, political competition is actually enhancing stability. Yes, I hope so. The key point, however, given that we are small, we're multi-racial, and we are changing so rapidly, the key point is to make sure the fault lines of race, language, religion, class, social, economic status do not become accentuated by a more competitive body politic. So that will be our challenge. But if we can ensure that we remain cohesive, united, that we are still capable of making tough decisions if the tough decisions are needed, then a more competitive political system, in fact, is a positive step. Well, ministers, thank you for the time today. What's happening in your portfolio in Singapore? We're watching it closely and we really appreciate your helping us understand it better. Thank you very much for joining us.