Long-term climate change mitigation in Thailand: energy environment and economic perspectives towards 2050

Climate change, as a global problem, has occurred due to the rising of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG). The world is facing severe impacts from climate change. There is an urgent need to call for actions to tackle global warming that results in extreme weather conditions and associated disasters. The increase of the global temperature causes unprecedent events to human and natural system, including the warming of the oceans, melting of glaciers, sea level rise, and the decreasing of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, it is high time that necessary action is taken to avoid the adverse effects of climate change. The Paris Agreement aims at minimizing threats of climate change by keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level and to pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also aims to strengthen countries’ capability to deal with the climate change impacts and support them in their efforts. In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, carbon neutrality becomes a challenging issue worldwide. To move towards the right execution direction of Thailand’s GHG emission reduction pathways, study is necessary, especially in the energy, the agriculture, and the forestry sectors. Energy system models have been used to investigate the impacts of energy and climate policies in the energy system. This study analyzes the energy, environment and economic sectors to achieve low carbon targets in Thailand. The study develops the energy system model (including Asia-Pacific Integrated Model/Enduse (AIM/Enduse) and Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) models), Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) model, and economic model for Thailand policy analysis. Results show that the carbon pricing mechanism will accelerate the transformation in the energy sector. Wind and solar electricity will be the key pillars for decarbonizing the electricity/power sector in 2050. In addition, coal- and gas-fired plants, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (CCS) will become crucial in reducing CO2 emissions. Moreover, a major transformation in the transport sector is critically needed. The AFOLU sector will play an important role in GHG mitigation and achieving net zero emissions. Therefore, GHG mitigation potential in AFOLU sector is assessed in this study. The co-benefits in terms of air pollutants reduction and enhanced energy security are investigated. In addition, this study explores a smart city in the environmental perspective, the energy savings and the GHG reduction potentials at a provincial level. In the near term, efficient engines with biofuel and electric vehicles (EVs) will play a key role in GHG mitigation in Thailand’s smart cities.