Scenario Based Assessment of CO2 Mitigation Pathways: A Case Study in Thai Transport Sector

Abstract “When to implement actions” and “how much to abate emissions” are two major concerns of policy makers when it comes to policy formulation and planning for CO 2 mitigation. This study investigates CO 2 mitigation potential in the Thailand transport sector under four possible mitigation pathways. Those pathways comprise four mitigation actions and three different time frames as implementation periods (2015, 2025 and 2035 as commencement years). To represent that, along with business as usual (BAU) case (as reference), four countermeasure scenarios were modeled namely L2035, L2025, L2015 and fuel switching (FS). Results show that the L2015 scenario can achieve the highest CO 2 mitigation with 23% cumulative reduction against the BAU from 2010-2050. However, due to countermeasure implementation delays (by 10 years in L2025 and by 20 years in L2035), the mitigation potentials have dropped significantly. In addition, early in implementations of actions have resulted considerable reduction in energy consumption and it has allowed more penetrations of bio-fuel blends and electricity as replacements to fossil oils. Moreover, in terms of abatement costs, technologies such as efficient vehicles and modal shifts provide cost savings along with high mitigation potentials.