Resident Coordinator's Remarks at Stockholm+50 PAGE Side Event “Revisiting Economics and Finance to Accelerate Action for People & Planet”

I will speak to UN’s role to unite economic expertise for a green transition.

In Thailand, the Government is committed to the transformation towards a high-value, sustainable economy and society, premised on the Bio-Circular Green model. In such an UMIC context, the UN is focusing in 4 areas to support green growth:

First, policy advice to formalize the carbon market. The carbon market remains voluntary in Thailand with PS informally trading carbon credits. In a post COP26 world, UN’s TA led by UNIDO, UNEP, UNDP and ILO is supporting Government to examine carbon taxation, mechanisms for reporting carbon credits, and the knock-on effects for the economy as a whole, and specifically SMEs.

In coordination with government regulators, we are leveraging UN’s convening role to connect the PS, investors and bankers to prepare for a formal domestic market and potentially regional trading.

Second, waste assessments and financing mechanisms to support waste management based on BCG, which is core to the national development plan. The UN through UNEP, UNHABITAT and UNIDO in partnership with provincial administrations and cities is undertaking waste management assessments across 20 hotspots nationwide to inform policy and practices.

There is a clear urgency with UN assessment showing that three-quarters of waste is going to landfills and dumpsites that are close to saturation. This will require increasing the role of the private sector, which currently accounts for half of waste collection and processing and scaling up options for recycling and reuse.

Third, engaging with the private sector to introduce cleaner technology targeting polluting industry. By introducing BAT as a pilot in the aluminum and steel industry, we have cut GHGs by 6% and reduced costs, demonstrating the economic incentives of greener technologies and scalability, with solutions now being adopted by more than two-thirds of the steel and almost half of the aluminum industry.

Fourth, longer term policy advice and programme support for green jobs and upskilling. ILO, UNDP and UNIDO are working with Government to unlock green jobs and upskill and reskill workers, especially young people, to take advantage of new labour market opportunities emerging from the growth of the BCG economy.

From Thailand’s perspective, PAGE and other joint programmes, which are embedded in UN’s Cooperation Framework, have incentivized the Country Team to coordinate, leverage and adopt an integrated approach. Currently, nearly 40% of programming is joint, but mainly in implementation, requiring us to get better at co-designing projects from the beginning.

We have seen how the joined-up approach among the UNCT raises ambitions among our public and private sector partners and incentivizes them to work more closely together in a whole-of-government approach.