In one of the most momentous climate policy moves, Thailand’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0) was formally submitted to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Nov 4.
Compared to Thailand’s previous NDCs, the NDC 3.0 is a big step up. It shifts the Net Zero target year from 2065 to 2050 and changes the greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to an absolute basis.
However, one other notable change many people may have missed is the fact that the NDC 3.0 mentions and elucidates Thailand’s version of a “just transition” for the first time.
The NDC 3.0 document states that “Thailand has assessed the economic and social implications of its response measures to facilitate a just transition towards a low-carbon economy, aiming to minimise negative impacts while maximising opportunities for sustainable growth, green job creation, and social inclusiveness.”
The document further claims that “Thailand’s NDC prioritises protecting vulnerable groups — women, youth, children, and people of determination — demonstrating its commitment to diverse perspectives in climate action”.
However, the NDC 3.0 document overall remains vague on how exactly Thailand will “facilitate a just transition”. This is especially important since the NDC 3.0 also places great emphasis on private sector engagement, noting that Thailand will involve enterprises “in planning and maintaining stakeholder dialogue” to “craft economically sound, market-aligned policies for a low-carbon transition”.
In Thailand, it is all too often that “market-aligned policies” in rhetoric become neoliberal “market-knows-best policies” in practice, and that discards all considerations of equality or justice by the wayside.
That’s why we should all monitor and demand an inclusive stakeholder consultation process for the development of the revised NDC Action Plan and the implementation of Thailand’s 2024 National Adaptation Plan.
The inclusive participation is also crucial to ensure the design and implementation of Thailand’s Climate Fund under the upcoming Climate Change Act — so that the “just transition” principle is respected and realised. Just transition principles and the broader concept of “climate justice” are universally important, particularly in countries with serious inequality, such as Thailand.
Earlier in November, I was at the launch event of Oxfam’s report entitled “The Unequal Future: Asia’s Struggle for Justice in a Warming and Wired World”, which reveals Asia’s widening inequality.
Across the region, the wealthiest 10% control 60-77% of national income, while the poorest 50% hold merely 12-15%. In Thailand, the number of billionaires rose from 15 to 25 between 2015 and 2025, with their combined wealth exceeding US$93.5 billion (about 3 trillion baht) — equivalent to 17.37% of the country’s GDP of $538.1 billion.
Climate change is deepening inequality throughout the region. From 2014 to 2025, over 1.2 billion people experienced severe natural disasters, resulting in at least 150,000 deaths. Yet, Oxfam’s analysis shows a stark disparity in carbon emissions: the world’s richest 1% generate 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions, while those bearing the heaviest burden are impoverished communities lacking adequate housing, life insurance, and healthcare access.
“Unless governments begin taxing the wealthy appropriately to fund public services, inequality will continue driving social unrest and intensifying climate disasters across the region,” warned Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, during the report’s launch.
During the panel discussion at the report’s launch event in Bangkok, I pointed out that the government and private sector prioritise reducing greenhouse gases, but less attention has been given to climate adaptation actions. Data from CFNT’s Climate Finance Tracker shows that between 2020-2024, Thailand invested only 148 billion baht in climate adaptation, less than 10% of total funding for greenhouse gas reduction.
At the event, I also suggested that we need to be careful with carbon taxes because they could further widen inequality, as carbon taxes might become a “regressive tax” that hurts low-income people who cannot afford low-carbon products as easily as wealthier groups.
I wholeheartedly support the recommendations in the 2025 Climate Inequality Report from Inequality Lab.
The report points out that the richest 1% not only emit more carbon dioxide, but they also hold shares in companies that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. Under consumption-based accounting, emissions of an individual in the global top 1% are about 75 times higher than those of someone in the bottom 50%, but under ownership-based accounting, this rises dramatically to around 680 times higher.
In the report, Inequality Lab proposes that introducing a tax on the carbon intensity of wealth, instead of on the consumption of high-carbon products. This could help to redirect capital flows away from high-carbon assets, especially in the absence of an outright ban on high-carbon investments.
For example, a €150 (5,600 baht) per tonne carbon tax on assets could generate €36 billion in France, €74 billion in Germany, and US$534 billion in the US. This “wealth tax” that is categorically levied on the carbon content of assets is likely to be more progressive than “standard” carbon taxes, which are typically passed on to final consumers.
Thailand’s carbon taxes are still on the drawing board, since the country’s draft Climate Change Act has yet to pass the legislative process and become law.
Yet, since February, the Department of Climate Change and Environment (DCCE) had already envisioned that the Climate Fund will be set up as a separate fund. The DCCE also estimated that starting in 2031, the fund will start receiving income mostly from ETS (Emission Trading System), which is estimated at 5.3 billion baht in 2031, 137.9 billion baht between 2031-2037, and over THB1.1 trillion between 2038-2050.
The main challenge is how to ensure the Climate Fund can enable a just transition and reduce climate inequality in Thailand. I propose the following components for the fund’s allocation framework:
1. Prioritise vulnerable communities
Geographically, the Climate Fund should prioritise climate-vulnerable regions identified in Thailand’s vulnerability assessments, communities that are currently dependent on fossil fuel industries (e.g., coal mining areas, oil and gas workers), agricultural communities that are expected to face more severe impact of climate change like droughts and floods, and coastal communities that are threatened by land subsidence coupled with sea-level rise.
I believe it would be more advantageous for Thailand if part of the Climate Fund is set aside to provide financial assistance to address losses from climate change, such as extreme weather events and slow-onset events, like sea-level rise. That is in line with the Loss and Damage Fund, which was fully operationalised in 2024 at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
2. Prioritise adaptation over mitigation
The Fund should provide adaptation support for workers who are transitioning out of carbon-intensive industries, including retraining programmes, income support during transition periods, and seed capital for alternative businesses.
Additionally, the focus should be on sponsoring community-level infrastructure adaptation, such as communal water management systems, climate-resilient agriculture, and community-based early warning systems. This is to assist the poor who will bear the brunt of climate change impacts.
I believe there is also ample opportunity to devise financial innovations for better social protection, including climate insurance schemes and debt-for-climate swaps for smallholder farmers.
3. Prioritise SMEs, grassroots projects
Given Thailand’s powerful oligarchy and kleptocracy, the Climate Fund is at risk of being captured by interest groups and large high-carbon incumbents who seek to use limited public resources to invest in the transition, instead of using their own funds to internalise negative externalities (e.g., high greenhouse gas emissions) that they cause.
To minimise this risk, the Climate Fund should announce from the beginning that it would prioritise SMEs, community and grassroots projects, such as open-source water stress maps and heat stress maps for SMEs, community-owned distributed solar and wind projects in rural areas, training programmes for rural solar technicians, and small grants for community-led climate adaptation and planning projects.
In addition to thinking about how to align fund allocation in accordance with just transition and climate justice principles, the sources of income for the Climate Fund can also be designed to align with these principles as well.
For instance, following the Climate Inequality Report recommendations, Thailand should consider carbon-adjusted wealth taxes on high-emission asset portfolios, windfall taxes on fossil fuel profits, and redirecting fossil fuel subsidies to investments in renewable energy infrastructure such as smart grids.
