On June 29, 2007, a workshop was held on “CDM Energy Technologies for Sustainable Development in Thailand” at AIT. This is one of the activities of a project entitled “Potential of transferring and implementing Sustainable Energy Technologies through Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol”. The project also known as ENTTRANS or energy technology transfer has been conducted by an international consortium that consists of ten organizations around the world. Besides Thailand, countries involved in this project are Kenya, Chile, Greece, Netherlands, UK, Israel, and China. ENTTRANS is formulated to relate the issues of Climate change with sustainable development in the participating countries. The project is managed by Dr. Mithulananthan Nadarajah, the Energy Field of Study coordinator and project principal investigator, along with Dr. Animesh Dutta, assistant professor and project co- principal investigator and Ms. Sarina Adhikari, research associate.
Among the 715 CDM projects registered so far, 419 projects are from the Asia-Pacific region. However, the estimated emission reduction is only on the order of even less than 1 % of the total emissions. This clearly indicates that there is lot more to be done. With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol coming to an end soon, the projects like these are quite relevant and timely in combating with the problem of climate change. Thailand, also a part of Kyoto Protocol, is actively involved in development of CDM projects. The Thai government strongly acknowledges the needs to step up the cooperation on technology research, development, diffusion, and transfer between developed and developing countries for mitigation of GHG emission while maintaining economic goals of the country.
Participants of the workshop on CDM Energy Technologies for Sustainable Development in Thailand (June 29, 2007)
In this context, more than 30 stakeholders from various sectors of CDM projects development actively participated to discuss the enabling environment to promote CDM sector in Thailand; role of CDM for the technology transfer in Thailand and most importantly, to discuss the barriers to successful implementation of sustainable energy technologies under CDM and find ways to overcome them. The participants included representatives from the Office of Natural Resources and Environment Policy and Planning (ONEP), European Commission Delegation to Thailand, Ministry of Energy, Danish Thai Chamber of Commerce, Energy for Environment Foundation, electricity utilities, embassies, various INGOs and other expert groups comprising of CDM project developers, investors and consultants.
It has been concluded that though integrated technology solutions are available in Thailand and foreign investors are willing to invest in project development, there is a lack of properly functioning technology transfer network in terms of knowledge, operation and maintenance skills and market information and intelligence. It is recommended that on-site training and transfer of knowledge to develop technical know-how of plants in the case of large scale technologies like biomass and biogas based generations are the most needed in Thailand. Ensuring constant supply of quality feedstock appeared to be one of the most important barriers for the CDM projects. For small scale projects, voluntary emission reductions (VERs) appear to be the preferred choice compared to certified emission reductions (CERs) obtained from CDM projects because of high transaction costs. Though Thailand is in the process of updating and refining the policy tools and incentive schemes, there is still a significant room for improvements and policy integration. The simplification and efficiency of the CDM approval procedure in Thailand falls under a widely accepted recommendation to promote the technology transfer through CDM.
These workshop outcomes are believed to be very helpful for the CDM project developers, investors and policy makers at the national level and to assist in the procurement of efficient CDM environment for the successful technology transfer.