fuel drilling plans undermine climate pledges

Fuel drilling plans undermine climate pledges how to#

Thirdly, PTT’s GHG emissions have fluctuated around 155–160 MtCO 2e per year, while Thailand’s emissions were near to 300 MtCO 2e per year. Secondly, it is a state-owned company: the major shareholder is the Ministry of Finance with 51%. Moreover, among Thai firms in this branch, PTT represents a peculiar case due to three main reasons: firstly, it is significantly larger and more important than the others in terms of revenues, emissions, and number of employees and countries in which it operates.

Fuel drilling plans undermine climate pledges how to#

Analyzing Thailand’s energy sector can thus provide insights as to how companies behave in the absence of severe regulatory frameworks and specific guidelines on how to proceed. This leaves the companies significantly more room and time to re-organize themselves into low-carbon businesses compared with other countries which set more stringent targets.

Thailand, despite having undertaken a phase of rapid implementation of policies over the last decades, has only pledged to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce its GHG emissions 20% by 2030, with no further indication regarding future developments. Nonetheless, not all states have set net zero by 2050 as a target yet. Therefore, carbon management is crucial in order to both meet the targets on emissions set by governments and to adopt the most cost-effective plan available. In fact, energy companies now face the task of substantially restructuring their value chains and leading the way in the technological transition to renewable sources of energy or electric vehicles for instance, and they have a limited timespan to achieve this goal. This is where carbon management comes into play: it allows companies to rethink their business, goods, and services towards achieving a low-carbon economy. Therefore, energy companies are definitely among the most involved and affected by the urgency of reducing GHG emissions. In particular, GHG emissions are mainly caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, which occurs along the value chain of the energy sector. This means that the amount of GHG emitted into the atmosphere minus the quantity taken off of it equals zero. In order to maintain the global average temperature well below 2 ☌ more than pre-industrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has set the target of net zero emissions by 2050. Over the past few decades, the issue of climate change has become increasingly more critical for nearly all economic market sectors. This paper also discusses the long-term market implications of each of these alternatives.

Lastly, it was shown that PTT could obtain a reduction of 3 MtCO 2e per year by implementing CCUS technologies, potentially at a lower cost compared with the current USD 20–25 per tCO 2e abated. Moreover, investing in renewable energy leads to a reduction of 21.7 MtCO 2e per year at the cost of USD 2.85 billion. It was found that PTT could cover 6–10 MtCO 2e per year at the cost of USD 5–10 per tCO 2e by continuing to fund REDD+ projects. This paper thus provides estimations regarding the alternatives available to PTT by applying current academic literature and knowledge on PTT’s reduction plan, and by integrating it and verifying it with data retrieved from PTT’s competitors’ reduction plans.

As Thailand pledged to abate 20% of its GHG emissions within 2030, PTT set out its Climate Change Management plan, yet this still does not contain specific measures or projects that the company intends to undertake to meet the target. PTT represents a peculiar case in this field because it is a state-owned company that in the last few years accounted for 157.83 MtCO 2e per year, though it has not yet taken significant action to reduce its emissions. Thus, carbon management practices are nowadays critical for most firms, especially those working in the energy sector. While climate change is increasingly more present in political agendas, companies are called to restructure their businesses to meet national targets by reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.