Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) intends to launch a new consultation in the coming weeks that proposes to include specific criteria on the managed phase-out of coal-fired power plants in the Singapore taxonomy. Three consultations on the taxonomy have been released to date, in January 2021, May 2022, and February 2023. The final version of the taxonomy was supposed to be published in June this year, but according to Business Times MAS has decided to include coal phase-out in the taxonomy after extensive feedback during February 2023 consultation. The authority now plans to issue a new consultation in the next few weeks to include the additional criteria on coal phase-out, which will delay the publication of the final version of the taxonomy, now officially named the ‘Singapore Asia Taxonomy’. The taxonomy has been developed by Green Finance Industry Taskforce (GFIT), an industry-led initiative convened by MAS to accelerate the development of green finance. Gillian Tan, Chief Sustainability Officer at MAS, said that there is “credibility” for the phase-out of coal which the organisation intended to do by being “very specific and granular” about the requirements that must be in place for the phase-out to be considered “responsible and helpful to the climate cause”.
