SINGAPORE: “I love this country — but the weather is breaking me.”
The sentiment, shared on the popular subreddit r/asksingapore, has struck a chord with many netizens. While the city-state is often praised for its safety, infrastructure, affordability, and efficiency, its climate may be the one thing standing between residents and long-term happiness.
“I literally can’t step outside without breaking into sweat,” the user wrote. “Can’t enjoy nature walks, can’t run errands, can’t exercise outdoors. It’s seriously making me question my long-term plans here.”
And they’re not alone. The tropical heat and humidity have developed into more than just a minor inconvenience; they’ve become a quality-of-life issue.
Worse than the desert
While temperatures in Singapore hover around a seemingly manageable 27°C to 33°C, the blistering humidity makes it feel significantly hotter. In fact, one commenter pointed out that even 45°C in parts of Australia felt more bearable, due to the dry heat.
“Even in Perth at 45°C, I can go cycling at noon without sweating,” one user noted. “But in Singapore, I sweat buckets at just 28°C.”
Another joked, “That’s why we travel — to escape the weather.”
Singapore is heating faster than the global average
And the discomfort is more than anecdotal. Singapore’s climate is heating up at twice the global average, according to government data. In addition to its equatorial location, urbanisation has intensified the heat. Due to dense construction and heat-absorbing surfaces, built-up areas can be 7°C hotter than surrounding land — a sharp rise from 4.5°C in 2004.
Cooling the nation without degrading the planet
Singapore has never been a country to back down from a challenge, and this one is no different. Our government and private enterprises are actively experimenting with ways to cool the city sustainably and affordably, although not all initiatives have been met with enthusiasm from the public.
One prominent example is the Tengah housing estate, which features in-built cooling systems, but many residents have dismissed them as ineffective, even calling them “gimmicks.” Still, these experiments show that climate resilience is becoming central to urban planning in the nation.
Among the more tangibly successful and appreciated efforts are those focused on green building design — a strategy that aims to cool the city by blending architecture with nature.
This includes the widespread use of rooftop gardens, vertical greenery, and reflective surfaces, all of which help reduce heat absorption and lower “experiential” temperatures. These features not only beautify the urban landscape, giving the nation a “city in nature” vibe, but also serve a crucial role in creating a natural green cover across the built environment, offering shade and oxygen and improving air flow in densely developed areas.
However, Singapore still holds the highest number of air-conditioning units per capita in Southeast Asia, a signal that citizens are battling the heat as much as policymakers are.
Never done building
One user commented sharply, “Misplaced faith in political utopias has led to ruin — we are never done building Singapore.”
It’s a sobering reminder that no matter how perfect a city may seem, there’s always work to be done. In the case of Singapore, that next step in evolution may be to engineer comfort, not just convenience.
After all, as the climate warms and cities become denser, perhaps the real marker of a world-class city isn’t just efficiency but livability in the face of environmental extremes.
Until then, Singaporeans can expect to keep sweating — and asking: Can we chill, but sustainably?
