Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization
(Self-Description : Edited August 2008)
THE Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (TGO) is an autonomous governmental organization formed to be the implementing agency for the reduction of greenhouse gas in Thailand. It reports to the Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment.
TGO is tasked with promoting low carbon activities; investment in and marketing of emission reductions; establishing a greenhouse gas information centre; reviewing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects for approval; providing capacity development and outreach for CDM stakeholders and promote low carbon activities.
TGO is Thailand’s Designated National Authority for the Clean Development Mechanism.
Objectives and Duties
- Analysing and screening CDM projects for issuance of the Letter of Approval (LoA) and monitoring the projects
- Promoting CDM projects and the CER market
- To be the National Information Clearing House of Greenhouse Gas
- Managing all information regarding approved CDM projects and CER values
- Enhancing the capacity building of government and private sectors on greenhouse gas management
- Promoting public outreach regarding greenhouse gas
- Promoting and supporting all activities related to mitigation measures of climate change
Approval Process for CDM Projects
An industrialised country that wishes to get credits from a CDM project must obtain the consent of the developing country hosting the project that the project will contribute to sustainable development.
Then, using methodologies approved by the CDM Executive Board, the applicant (the industrialised country) must make the case that the carbon project would not have happened anyway (establishing additionality), and must establish a baseline estimating the future emissions in absence of the registered project.
The case is then validated by a third party agency, called a Designated Operational Entity, to ensure that the project results in real, measurable, long-term emission reductions.
The CDM Executive Board then decides whether or not to register (approve) the project. If a project is registered and implemented, the Board issues credits, called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), commonly known as carbon credits.
Each unit of carbon credit is equivalent to the reduction of one metric tonne of CO2e, e.g. CO2 or its equivalent), to project participants based on the monitored difference between the baseline and the actual emissions, verified by the Designated Operational Identity..
Establishing additionality
To avoid giving credits to projects that would have happened anyway, rules have been specified to ensure “additionality” of the project, that is, to ensure that the project really does reduce emissions more than would have occurred in the absence of the project. There are currently two rival interpretations of the “additionality” criterion:
What is often labelled ‘environmental additionality’ has it that a project is additional if the emissions from the project are lower than the baseline. It generally looks at what would have happened without the project.
In the other interpretation, sometimes termed ‘project additionality’, the project must not have happened without the Clean Development Mechanism. (CDM).
A number of terms for different kinds of “additionality” have been discussed, leading to some confusion, particularly over the terms ‘financial additionality’ and ‘investment additionality’ which are sometimes used as synonyms.
‘Investment additionality’, however, was a concept discussed and ultimately rejected during negotiation of the Marrakech Accords. Investment Additionality carried the idea that any project that surpasses a certain risk-adjusted profitability threshold would automatically be deemed non-additional.
‘Financial additionality’ is often defined as an economically non-viable project becoming viable as a direct result of CDM revenues.
Establishing a baseline
The amount of emission reduction, obviously, depends on the emissions that would have occurred without the project, minus the emissions of the project. The construction of such a hypothetical scenario is known as the baseline of the project.
The baseline may be estimated through reference to emissions from similar activities and technologies in the same country or in other countries, or to actual emissions prior to project implementation.
The partners involved in the project could have an interest in establishing a baseline with high emissions, which would yield a risk of awarding spurious credits. Independent third party verification is meant to ameliorate this potential problem.