Climate change: we need to do more

Prayut Chan-o-cha’s trip to Paris last week had a certain elegance that has rarely been seen since he seized power, at least in terms of public relations. He was on message, was pictured seemingly statesmanlike laying flowers in tribute to the victims of last month’s terrorist attacks, and avoided making any embarrassing blunders. At the main event, the UN’s climate change conference, he delivered Thailand’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 20% and 25% by 2030, which received positive coverage at home and was even welcomed in some quarters as ambitious.

The problem is the reality: the target is less ambitious than the one put forward by the government Gen Prayut ousted, and compares poorly with the targets set by comparable Asean neighbours. There is also a danger the pledge will simply be added to a litany of broken promises on climate change by successive governments. After all, this is a government that is determined to open two coal-fired power stations to meet growing needs.

Thailand’s emissions record is poor: all data from the World Bank show a virtually uninterrupted rise in energy consumption and greenhouse gas production, with the only exception coming during the 1997 financial crisis. The rise in emissions has been mostly steady, but with periodic acceleration — industrial energy use alone tripled between 1990 and 2010, according to one think tank — and the country now ranks 22nd in terms of the world’s polluters. The World Bank shows Thailand produced 4.47 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person as of 2010, up from 3.98 tonnes per person in 2008.

Climate change should be a priority, not only because of Thailand’s role as an emitter, but because the country has suffered the consequences. The 2016 Global Climate Risk Index from Germanwatch was released last week, showing Thailand among the top 10 countries in the world to have felt the impact of extreme weather events linked to climate change. Storms, floods and landslides worldwide have killed more than 525,000 people in the past two decades, with financial losses of about 100 trillion baht in that time.

Promises to do something about climate change have been made before. In 2008, the brief government of the late Samak Sundaravej announced it would draft a framework with the aim of forcing major industrial companies to reduce emissions by between 15-20%. The Samak administration was concerned with extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels and health problems related to pollution: all of these have become reality, but politics intervened and nothing much came of the policy.

History repeated itself somewhat under Yingluck Shinawatra, although Pheu Thai set a higher target in 2011. It aimed to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20-25% by 2030, using 2005 levels as a baseline. This makes the Yingluck government’s policy more ambitious than what Gen Prayut announced last week — while the percentage is the same, it uses business as usual as the starting point, using the higher 2015 emissions level rather than the 2005 figure.

But there was a difference between rhetoric and reality under Pheu Thai. Ambitious as the headline promise was, the government appeared to think little of the environmental impact of the first car-buyer’s scheme which resulted in hundreds of thousands of extra vehicles on already clogged roads. There were policies for renewable energy, even amid accusations of irregularities with the popular solarcell scheme, but these were all pushed aside during the political crisis. It is difficult to know what good was achieved, as figures from the International Energy Agency show emissions still went up in this time.

Significant action on climate change will require international efforts, but for all the talk of Gen Prayut’s ambition, he really charted a middle path. With China notably engaged in the Paris talks, India has played a blocking role during the negotiations, according to reports yesterday. Yet India still plans to reduce emissions by 33-35% by 2030 based on 2005 levels.

Gen Prayut’s ambition also falls short of comparable Asean countries. Malaysia pledged a 35% reduction from 2005 levels, expanding to 45% with international financing; Indonesia set 29% as its target from today’s levels, and up to 41% with assistance; the Philippines leads with a goal of 70%, but all conditional on outside help. Whether these stances will lead to any agreement in Paris, and what form it takes, should be known by next weekend — but there continue to be arguments over what the overall goal should be.

What Gen Prayut and the junta set was a safe and conservative target. Given Thailand’s role as a leading emitter and the fact the country suffers severe consequences from climate change, it can afford to be more ambitious.

Given Thailand’s role as a leading emitter and the fact the country suffers severe consequences from climate change, it can afford to be more ambitious