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To avoid the potential adverse impacts of climate change from global warming, it is suggested that the target of net zero emissions should be reached by this mid-century. Thailand is aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Since electricity generation is one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide emission, the associated emissions must be greatly reduced to achieve the targets mentioned above. Thus, new generation expansion plans must be well developed. This paper discusses the development of generation expansion plans considering Thailand's latest policies along with enhancement of the existing multi-period linear programming model, allowing new electricity generation technologies having low emissions, e.g., solar PV with battery and hydrogen blending in natural gas, to be integrated into generation expansion planning. Then, four generation expansion plans with different levels of hydrogen blending in natural gas are proposed and discussed. It is found that Thailand can achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 by promoting more use of renewable energy altogether with trade-off between land for solar PV installation and amount of hydrogen blended in natural gas. The lesson learned from this study provides crucial information about possible pathways to achieve carbon neutrality in the electricity sector for policy makers in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns result in global climate change. Human activities that burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas have been identified as the main driver of climate change. The extreme weather events, especially floods and droughts, have already caused severe economic impacts. These impacts will continue to intensify unless transformative and holistic adaptations are put in place. The Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aims at keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5° Celsius. To achieve the targets, balancing between anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) sources and sinks needs strong efforts and long-term low emissions development strategies of the participating countries. Thailand's long-term low GHG emissions development strategy (LT-LEDS) submitted to UNFCCC in 2022 included national adaptation and economy-wide GHG mitigation in the energy, industrial processes and product use, waste, agriculture and land use, land-use change and forestry sectors, and international supports needed to meet the net zero emissions targets. Thus, this paper reviews several low-carbon development strategies in Thailand to meet the targets of carbon neutrality and net zero emissions. The impacts of LT-LEDS include GHG emissions reduction and the macroeconomic impacts. Results of several low-carbon development strategies in Thailand show that achieving the nationwide carbon neutrality and net zero GHG emissions is possible; but all feasible options and measures need to be implemented immediately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last twenty years, there has been swift growth in industrialization and technological advancements, driving economic progress. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that these sectors will bring about environmental shifts. Thus far, endeavors have been undertaken to assess the influence of industrialization and technological advancements on environmental deterioration. Additionally, the extensive discussion surrounding the impact of financial development, trade openness, and technological innovation on the environment has not yielded conclusive empirical findings. Studies often operate under the assumption of symmetric relationships, potentially leading to biased results. Adding to the discussion on the drivers of carbon neutrality, the time-dependent effects of critical aspects such as financial development and technological innovation should inform meaningful policies for environmental management. This article explores the time-varying causal association between trade openness, industrialization, financial development, technological innovation, and CO2 emissions in Thailand using novel time-varying Granger causality tests. The time-varying causality outcomes demonstrate that the associations change significantly over time, in contrast to the results of Toda-Yamamoto causality. Overall, there exists a bidirectional relationship between industrialization, financial development, trade openness, technological innovation, and CO2 emissions over different time sequences. These outcomes have implications for both policy and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seagrass habitats are among the most valuable coastal ecosystems. They provide a wide array of ecosystem services (ES) that support the livelihoods of many people. However, seagrass habitats worldwide are at risk of being lost due to the alteration of coastal areas by many causes. Seagrass meadows around Thailand were assessed to evaluate their ecosystem services and vulnerability (VU) status. The ES and VU analyses could be used as basic tools to assess the status of individual seagrass meadows and to prioritize the action needed among several meadows. From 82 seagrass sites, the ES of seagrass habitats tended to be varied based on the areas of the seagrass beds. The vulnerability of the seagrass habitats was mainly influenced by the threat of boating accidents and the incidence of sedimentation. The final combined analysis suggested that a seagrass site at Ban Don (BD), in Surat Thani Province, should be the priority for intervention due to the importance of the ES provided at the site and the existence of a degree of threat from poor land-use management. This work allows us to understand more about the targeted management of seagrass ecosystems, which is very important for conservation and restoration because of its significant potential carbon offset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to assess the tree species and density, biomass, carbon stocks, and the value of carbon stocks in a small community forest in Thailand. The research estimated the biomass above and below ground, carbon stocks, carbon dioxide absorption, and the value of carbon stocks using the European Union Allowance (EUA) and US California Carbon Market exchange rates. The conserved forest zone had 14 different tree species and a density of 618 trees per ha, with a total biomass of 68.130 tonnes, 3.204 tonnes of carbon stored, and 91.74 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed. The carbon stock value was calculated at € 1,478.08 and $ 965.66, respectively. In contrast, the utilized forest zone had 7 tree species and a density of 46 trees per ha, with a total biomass of 1.584 tonnes, which was equivalent to 1.584 tonnes of carbon stored or 4.50 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed. The value of carbon stock in this zone was € 39.78 and $ 60.90, respectively. The total value of carbon stock at the Ban Khum community forest was $ 2,853.14, assuming a 6% annual interest rate and a carbon trading price of $ 50/tonne CO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent years have been marked by the role of green tech innovation in decreasing carbon emissions worldwide to attain the carbon neutrality target. Despite many studies examining the nexus between the former and energy consumption, tech innovation's effects on CO2 releases have not been extensively researched, and the extant empirical findings are often contradictory. Also, a major concern regarding the available literature is the scarcity of papers that scan the impact of tourism on carbon emissions, even though the industry has a high potential to affect ambient air pollution. In this case, the evidence is mixed, and no consensus among academics on the relationships between the two. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the relevance of green innovation and tourism in decreasing environmental damage in Thailand based on the bootstrapping ARDL causality model suggested by (McNown et al., 2018). This specification includes a new cointegration feature and conventional ARDL bounds tests, which increases the power of the t- and of the f-test and has several advantages, being more adequate for dynamic models with more than one explanatory variable. Our findings reveal that green innovation and tourism lead to lower environmental damage by reducing CO 2 emissions, similar to foreign investments and that green tech innovation improves the environmental quality via lower carbon emissions. • The study investigates the role of green innovation and tourism on CO2 emissions. • The study applied advanced econometric techniques. • Green innovation and tourism lead to lower environmental damage. • Foreign investments improve the environmental quality. • Green-tech innovation also helps to reduce CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar energy is planned to undergo large-scale deployment along with Thailand's transformation to a carbon neutral society in 2050. In the course of energy transformation planning, the issue of energy infrastructure adaptation to climate change has often been left out. This study aims to identify climate-related risks and countermeasures taken in solar power plants in Thailand using thematic analysis with self-administered observations and structured interviews in order to propose points of consideration during long-term energy planning to ensure climate adaptation capacity. The analysis pointed out that floods and storms were perceived as major climate events affecting solar power plants in Thailand, followed by lightning and fires. Several countermeasures were taken, including hard countermeasures that require extensive investment. Following policy recommendations were derived from the climate-proofing investment scenario study. Policy support in terms of enabling regulations or financial incentives is needed for implementation of climate-proofing countermeasures. Public and private sectors need to secure sufficient budget for fast recovery after severe climate incidents. Measures must be taken to facilitate selection of climate-resilient sites by improving conditions of power purchase agreement or assisting winning bidders in enhancing climate adaptability of their sites. These issues should be considered during Thailand's long-term energy planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]