But climate change is global, not local. So it would seem that worldwide adoption of electric cars would be in Singapore's national interest, assuming they genuinely see an existential threat to Singapore from climate change.

And yet, they make statements like this which seem counterproductive. So, why?

It's in TFA. In their opinion good public transport has a much larger impact on climate change than personal cars. Which has been proven to be the case countless times.

> But climate change is global, not local.

And Singapore can't do shit to the way the rest of the world combats climate. It can have an impact within its own borders. It (correctly) identified that the public transport makes more sense in a city-state. It incentivizes public transport while de-incentivizing car ownership in general (electric or not) because there's not enough space for the supporting infrastructure.

You'd learn all of this and more by reading the article before commenting.

I would guess Singapore wants to encourage a local electric vehicle industry and will shelter it from competition in the early years.

No. Singapore is a tiny city state with a service based economy

Dyson is setting up an EV plant in Singapore.