GHG Mitigation Potentials of Thailand’s Energy Policies to Achieve INDC Target

Abstract

Climate change is a critical issue causing awareness of greenhouse gases (GHG) emission managements in many other countries around the world. The energy sector is the highest contributor of the global GHG emissions. In 2013, it contributes about 36 percent of total GHG emissions in Thailand. In 2015, Thailand submitted the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UNFCCC. The target of GHG reduction is 20 percent from the projected business-as-usual (BAU) level by 2030 in the Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Uses (IPPU), and Waste sectors; however, the level of contribution could increase up to 25 percent with support. In the roadmap of Thailand’s INDC, emission reduction in the energy sector is accounted for about 98 percent of overall reduction. The Energy Efficiency plan (EEP2015) and Alternative Energy Development plan (AEDP2015) are implemented in order to reduce not only energy consumption but also GHG emission in Thailand. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the GHG mitigation potential of those measures in order to identify the effort to achieve the INDC’s target in 2030. In this study, the mitigation potential of the energy plans is divided into four scenarios. In 2030, emissions in the energy sector in BAU will be 425,649 kt-CO2eq. Moreover, in the same year, results indicate that GHG emissions can be mitigated by 47%, 23%, 30% and 29% in the SC1, SC2, SC3 and SC4 scenarios, respectively when compared to the BAU. However, the INDC plan can reduce GHG emissions by 27% in the energy sector. It implies that one of the plans should achieve at least 75% of its target and another must achieve 50% of its target, Thailand will accomplish its INDC target.