Photo credit: Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
Dr. Frank Rijsberman, GGGI Director-General, meets and discusses Thailand-GGGI partnership with H.E. General Surasak Karnjanarat, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment

Bangkok – February 22, 2018 – Thailand is very active on green growth. The country has shifted its development paradigm from “growth-oriented” to a new, holistic model of “people-centered development”. This is well reflected in the recent Twenty-Year National Strategy (2017-2036), which serves as an umbrella for national development plans, as well as the Twelfth National Economic and Social Development Plan (2017-2021), the country’s five-year national development plan. A low carbon society is one of the key development objectives. The country has also committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change. With this progressive movement, Thailand became a Member of GGGI in early 2016.

To reaffirm GGGI’s strong commitment and explore potential areas of additional partnership with Thailand, GGGI Director-General, Dr. Frank Rijsberman visited the country between February 21-23. Dr. Rijsberman had a unique opportunity to meet and discuss with H.E. General Surasak Karnjanarat, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment. The discussion centered around Thailand’s development priorities, especially the development of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) which is expected to be the country’s key economic driver for the years to come, and how GGGI can leverage strong experience working in green industry in Thailand and elsewhere to ensure long-term sustainability of the project.

Dr. Rijsberman had fruitful discussions with the management of the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization, Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board, and the private sector on how GGGI can work with Thailand more closely on greening the industry as well as expanding the work to green cities which is also a priority issue for the country.

Photo credit: Khan Ram-Indra, GGGI Country Representative for Thailand
Caption: Dr. Frank Rijsberman moderated a session at UN’s Global SDG7 Conference with the objective to increase the deployment of renewable energy around the world.

The visit also coincided with the United Nations’ Global SDG7 Conference where Dr. Rijsberman moderated a session on “Significantly increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix”. With the fact that the global community is still far from achieving renewable energy milestones under the SDG, the session focused on how best practices and lessons learned from successful countries can be shared with other countries to effectively accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.