Simultaneously Achieving Climate Change and Air Quality Goals in Thailand

Thailand has introduced a wide range of policies intended to reduce the adverse impacts of air pollution on human health, crop yields, and other development priorities. Thailand has also adopted increasingly ambitious climate policies as part of global efforts to keep warming within safe levels. Since emissions contributing to air pollution and climate change often share sources, Thailand could save lives, money, and time from integrated responses to these two interrelated concerns. In short, Thailand has a significant--but often untapped--opportunity for integrated air pollution and climate change policies.

After joining the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) in 2019, Thailand initiated a CCAC Supporting National Action & Planning initiative (SNAP) project in 2021 to take advantage of that opportunity. This assessment report is the first main output of that engagement. The report has several objectives meant to support the design and implementation of integrated air pollution and climate policies in Thailand:

1. Identify policies and measures with the potential to achieve both air pollution and climate change benefits;

2. Quantify the air pollutant, short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) and greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction potential of these policies and measures;

3. Evaluate the public health benefits (avoided premature deaths) from the potential implementation of these measures; and

4. Identify different barriers to their implementation and evaluate the impact of these barriers in reducing the speed and effectiveness of the emission reductions and other benefits from their implementation.

This assessment shows that there is currently substantial overlap in the major sources of air pollutants, SLCPs and GHGs (Figure 1). For particulate matter, agricultural residue burning is the largest source, followed by charcoal production (for residential energy and cooking), industry, transport and open burning of waste. The transport sector is the single largest source of nitrogen dioxide emissions, while the agriculture, waste, and fossil fuel production sectors account for most of Thailand’s methane. This overlap in the sources of key pollutants underlines the substantial opportunity to target specific sources for mitigation, and is a key starting point to identifying the measures with the greater mitigation and co-benefits potential.

Within these major air pollutants, SLCP and GHG emitting sources, there are already policies and measures within Thailand’s air pollution (e.g., PM2.5 action plan), climate change (Nationally Determined Contribution and Long-term Strategy), and sectoral planning that could yield emission reductions. These measures were extracted, and combined with other measures from international assessments to produce a list of 19 priority mitigation measures that could achieve air pollution and climate change benefits. 

The full implementation of the 19 mitigation measures were estimated to result in substantial reductions in the majority of pollutants. Particulate matter would witness the greatest reductions – with up to a 70% drop by 2030. However, other air pollutants, such as NOx and SO2, would also fall significantly. In total, the 19 mitigation measures also achieve substantial climate change benefits, reducing national total carbon dioxide emissions by almost 25%, and methane emissions by 65%. The substantial potential to reduce methane emissions demonstrates that Thailand can make a substantial contribution to global efforts to mitigate climate change and keep global temperature increases within 1.5 °C.

Perhaps most importantly were that the estimated reductions would also bring sizable health benefits. The reduction in air pollutant emissions were estimated to result in a 22% reduction in population-weighted particulate matter concentrations across Thailand. This reduction in air pollutant exposure estimated to avoid over 3,000 premature deaths per year by 2030 in Thailand.

Though the potential benefits are significant, their achievement is not guaranteed. In fact, there are significant barriers to implementation of many of the mitigation measures that are not typically considered in modelling scenarios. If not overcome, these barriers could substantially delay or limit the scope of implementation, slowing and lowering the emission reductions as well as the delivery of related benefits. Stakeholder surveys and literature reviews on institutional, economic, technical and social barriers for each measure suggest that only half of the achievable emission reductions from full implementation of the mitigation measures would be achieved. This underlines that the measures require supportive enabling reforms such as interagency coordination mechanisms (especially between the PCD, MONRE/ONEP, and relevant sectoral agencies); fiscal reforms that allocate resources for local actions; targeted capacity building programmes; and follow-up and review to assess effectiveness.

Recommendations

The results from this assessment demonstrate that Thailand has a significant opportunity to simultaneously improve air quality and health while mitigating climate change. To capitalise on this opportunity, the project team recommends that policymakers and other stakeholders work on the following seven areas:

Recommendation 1: Enhance Thailand’s national air quality planning by strengthening implementation of priority air pollution measures.

Recommendation 2: Develop subnational clean air and climate plans featuring regionally important solutions.

Recommendation 3: Strengthen the integration between national clean air and climate planning.

Recommendation 4: Enhance methane action to achieve multiple benefits. 

Recommendation 5: Adopt institutional and other enabling reforms to accelerate recommended actions.

Recommendation 6: Integrate air pollution and climate change emission inventories to track progress.

Recommendation 7: Partner with local colleges and universities to build local capacities.

You can download the full report below.