US exit ‘won’t affect Thailand’

The United States’ decision last month to halt its participation in the 2015 Paris agreement may have little impact on financial assistance given by developed countries to Thailand and other developing countries to support their climate change mitigation and adaptation plans, a government agency says.

Developing countries are expected to host further talks on how to subsidise climate change mitigation and adaptation plans during the next Conference of the Parties (COP23) meeting under the UN Climate Change Framework in Bonn, Germany, from Nov 6 to 17, said Raweewan Bhuridej, secretary-general of the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning.

Ms Raweewan said the US withdrawal from the climate change agreement will not stop other nations’ commitment to cooling the Earth down.

However, it might have a minor impact on the Green Climate Fund (GCF), to which mostly developed countries contribute money, including the US.

“Thailand and other developing countries might be slightly affected as we still need money from the fund,” she said, adding that China has promised to donate more money, so the impact may not be so bad.

GCF started seeking funds in 2014, and rapidly gathered pledges worth US$10.3 billion.

It was created to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenges of climate change, including promoting green energy and supporting mitigation and adaptation for developing countries.

Regarding Thailand, she said the country will set up more effective systems to calculate greenhouse emission amounts in all sectors so the government can proceed with various measures and plans to deal with emissions.

She said the government in May approved the “Nationally Determined Contribution Roadmap on Mitigation 2021-2030”, setting out the guidelines for the country’s target to curb greenhouse emissions by 20% to 25% by the year 2030.

It is one part of the country’s commitment to the Paris agreement.

The plan focuses on the energy and transport sectors, waste management sector and industrial processing and product application sectors.

It forecasts a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in those sectors by 20.8% compared with a business as usual (BAU) level, or equivalent to 115.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.