CO2 Reduction Perspective in Thailand’s Transport sector towards 2030

Abstract

The 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) agreed to limit global surface temperature below 2 °C when compared to pre-industrial revolution and will try to cap the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. Thailand’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) has been ratified to reduce GHG emissions by 20-25% when compared to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario in 2030. In the BAU, Thailand GHG emission will be about 555.0 Mt-CO2eq in 2030. Therefore, in 2030, Thailand has to reduce GHG emission about 111.0-139.0 Mt-CO2eq. In 2016, Thai government has launched Thailand’s NDC roadmap for reducing GHG emissions in the energy sector, the industrial processes and product use (IPPU) sector and the waste sector. The energy sector consists of five sub-sector namely: the power sector, the industrial sector, the transport sector, the residential sector and the commercial sector. The Thailand’s NDC roadmap reveals that GHG emission in energy sector, IPPU sector and waste sector will be reduced about 113.0 Mt-CO2eq, 0.6 Mt-CO2eq and 2.0 Mt-CO2eq, respectively. In the transport sector, Thailand’s NDC roadmap can mitigate GHG emission about 41.0 Mt-CO2eq. Consequently, this study aims to assess GHG mitigation potential in the energy sector particularly in the road transport sector under Thailand’s NDC. The Asian-Pacific Integrated Model/Enduse (AIM/Enduse) is selected for the analysis. The findings indicated that the energy efficiency improvement measure for diesel engines substantially lessen GHG emissions about 14.4 Mt-CO2eq, followed by the promotion of biofuel measure especially biodiesel (6.75 Mt-CO2eq). Consequently, both measures significantly decline the diesel consumption, which discloses the major fuel used in transport sector and accounted for 42% of energy consumption in the transport sector.