On Sept 20, more than 200 young demonstrators stormed into the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to demand government action on climate change.
Dropping to the floor to feign death in protest against mass species extinction, they sent a dramatic message to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on the eve of his trip to New York for the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (Unga 74). The so-called "die-in" coincided with global protests by young climate strikers led by young Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg, who is now participating at the UN gathering.
In New York, Gen Prayut is scheduled to deliver a speech at the Climate Action Summit on behalf of Asean, before returning to Thailand on Friday.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai and Natural Resources and Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa, the prime minister will share with world leaders what Thailand and its Asean neighbours are doing to combat climate change and its looming threat to life on earth.
In its four-year action plan (2018-2021) submitted at the 2015 UN Paris Climate Conference, Thailand volunteered to slash emissions of the main culprit for global warming, carbon dioxide. The plan calls for a 20% to 25% reduction of industrial greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The goal is impressive but it prompts one crucial question: How will the government achieve it without any bold action?
In particular, the fact that Gen Prayut and Mr Varawut have shied away from sharing with the public information on progress in cutting emissions strongly suggests there has been no breakthrough, nor any bold actions that makes one likely in the future. We could also mention the lack of consistency in state planning to tackle climate issues.
Take the controversial coal-fired power plants in Krabi and Songkhla, for example. As leader of the military regime, Gen Prayut last year ordered agencies to suspend the projects. However, it is generally recognised that his decision was driven by political self-interest, to ease pressure on his embattled administration, rather than out of concern for the environment or local villagers whose livelihoods would be threatened by the projects. More importantly, the regime realised that it could not push ahead with the projects when glaring flaws had emerged in the environmental impact assessment studies -- especially over participation at public hearings -- and at the same time as national power reserves were burgeoning.
In short, Gen Prayut took the decision in order to buy his regime some time. Meanwhile, however, stakeholders in coal-fired energy production have no real intention of scrapping plans for the two power-plant projects.
Among them is the Energy Ministry, which is continuing to pursue studies on the projects for the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) reports. Manoon Siriwan, an adviser to the Energy Ministry and member of the SEA panel, announced earlier this month that the studies' completion date had been postponed because public hearings could not be organised in time.
The question of how the government can meet its emissions target is made more urgent with each passing season, as the country's cycle of flood and drought worsens.
The time for political cynicism and dithering is over. The government must know it has to adopt strong political will, now, if we are to avoid the devastating impacts of climate change.