Thailand will aim to further reduce its emissions of harmful gases because a follow-up on the 2015 Paris climate agreement shows the country’s efforts are falling short of its target to help control the rising temperature of the planet, according to Chalermchai Sri-on, the minister of Natural Resources and Environment.
Mr Chalermchai made the remarks on Tuesday in his address at the COP29 climate summit being held by the United Nations in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The conference is scheduled to end on Friday but could drag on as participants are still haggling over details of financing to help poorer countries deal with climate-related challenges.
The “global stocktake” of countries’ performance since the Paris Agreement was adopted showed near-universal progress on climate action. But the world is still not on track to meet the long-term goal to keep the average temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times.
As well, the stocktake concluded that not enough countries had reached the necessary levels of resilience, and many had been unable to “mobilise and align the required financial flows”.
The stocktake forms the basis for countries to revise and update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) — UN-speak for the climate actions, including emissions reductions, that they intend to take by 2035.
The NDCs 3.0, as they are known, are due in 2025 and must be more ambitious than the current targets. They may be the last opportunity to get the world on track to staying within the 1.5C target, Mr Chalermchai said.
“We plan to reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions to below 270 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent against the 2019 level economy-wide by 2035,” he told the conference.
“A comprehensive green investment plan will support the implementation of NDC 3.0. Additionally, we will boost the GHG sink in land use, land-use change and forestry by 120 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2037.”
Mr Chalermchai said Thailand is among the countries that are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
“We have suffered record-breaking heat of 43 degrees Celsius, flash flooding due to heavy rainfall, as well as landslides, causing irreparable damage to our economy and livelihoods. This includes biodiversity loss such as seagrass, which would cause a decline in dugong populations of around 50% in less than six years,” he said.
Thailand emits less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gases.
“Yet the government is determined to enhance its mitigation action, and uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, to achieve our NDC 2030 goal by reducing GHG emissions by 222 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in five sectors,” the minister said.
Those sectors are energy, transport, waste, industrial process and product use, and agriculture, he added.
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