Trudging along Bangkok’s hot and dusty streets, green candidates struggle to canvass support ahead of Thailand’s election, with record-breaking pollution failing to spur anything more than political hot air.
For the past three months, much of the kingdom has been choking on dangerous air pollution, with smoke from forest fires and farmers burning crop stubble suffocating northern Chiang Mai and cloaking the capital with hazardous smog.
Despite the region facing recent record-breaking heat waves and worsening flooding due in part to rising sea levels, green movements have gained little traction with Thai voters.
Photo: AFP
“People acknowledge it, but they have no hope that politicians can solve this problem,” Green Party leader and founder Phongsa Choonaem said while he campaigned for Sunday’s vote.
As he distributed tree leaves rather than paper flyers to bemused bystanders, he said the public’s understanding of environmental issues was improving.
However, the party is fielding just a handful of candidates for the 500-seat lower house.
“We are not aiming for the prime minister position, we want to solve the environmental problem,” Phongsa said.
Thailand’s election is gearing up to be a clash between reformist movements— the Pheu Thai and Move Forward parties — and establishment outfits like Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s new United Thai Nation Party.
However, alongside the circus of parties vying to outbid each other with populist welfare policies, environmental issues have been a sideshow.
Move Forward has rolled out proposals to drive growth and reduce carbon emissions, including agricultural subsidies and promoting electric vehicle technology, while Pheu Thai has pledged to stop the stubble burning within a year.
Pheu Thai — along with the PPRP and the Democrat Party — has also backed a version of the Clean Air Act, initially drafted and proposed by the citizen think tank Clean Air Network.
“This is a real public health crisis,” Clean Air Network’s Weenarin Lulitanonda said, adding that about 2 million people have needed hospital treatment this year because of air pollution.
She cautiously welcomed politicians finally talking about the issue, but characterized many of their election promises as “loosey-goosey” in detail.
Delivering results in the form of legislation is what will count, she said.
A long-time campaigner on air pollution, Weenarin said voters’ growing awareness of the issue was encouraging, but warned against framing it as a choice between the environment on one side and economic growth, healthcare and democracy on the other.
“These things can be done in parallel, because maintaining your health and being alive is a really important precondition for any other issue that you care about,” she said.
“This is something that has to be above political or business interests, whether that’s the case or not is to be seen,” she said.
Hampering substantive change is Thailand’s system of political patronage, in which wealthy clans leverage links to further their business interests, said Danny Marks, assistant professor of environmental politics and policy at Dublin City University.
Air pollution is blamed on poor rural farmers burning their crops, he said, but they are paid by huge multinational Thai firms.
“Those who benefit basically from everyone breathing the bad air, unfortunately, are those who are quite close to the government,” Marks said.
He added that even leading opposition parties like Pheu Thai had never prioritized air pollution or environmental issues.
“I think they have always been allied to big business,” Marks said.
Chiang Mai has this year earned an unenviable international reputation for poor air quality, regularly beating notorious hotspots such as Beijing and New Delhi in the list of most polluted cities.
Verapol Charasirilert was studying in Chiang Mai, but returned to Bangkok because the pollution was so bad.
“I don’t think political parties have enough policies on the environment,” the 19-year-old said, adding that he planned to vote for Move Forward.
An ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute climate report late last year found 66 percent of Thais felt political parties did not prioritize climate change enough.
On the front line of the public health crisis caused by pollution, Chiang Mai cardiologist Rungsrit Kanjanavanit agreed.
“The policymakers need to understand the science and they need to realize the importance of it,” he said.
“People have been yelling, screaming a lot so they are beginning to hear us,” he said.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
RSS