Government approves carbon-offsetting deal with Thailand

An initial project under the Swiss-Thai carbon-offsetting agreement involves the funding of an electric bus network in the Thai capital, Bangkok. Keystone / Ritchie B. Tongo

The Swiss government has approved a bilateral climate protection accord with Thailand to carry out carbon-offsetting projects in the southeast Asian country.

“The agreement creates the framework conditions allowing Switzerland to carry out projects in Thailand to reduce CO2 emissions and to attribute the results thus obtained to its reduction objective,” the government saidExternal link in a statement on Friday.

An initial project under this agreement involves the funding of an electric bus network in the Thai capital, Bangkok, implemented by the Foundation for Climate Protection and Carbon Offset (KliK).

Carbon offsetting allows companies, governments and individuals to cancel out the impact of some of their national CO2 emissions by investing in projects abroad that reduce or store carbon. The first schemes were rolled out informally as early as 1989, but the practice has picked up as developed countries scramble to reach the global goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C as defined by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Missed target

Switzerland aims to halve its CO2 emissions overall by 2030 and become climate neutral by 2050. It failed to meet its intermediate goal of reducing emissions to 20% below 1990 levels: it managed a 19% reduction by 2020, the government said in April.

The government says it intends to achieve its climate goals via a combination of national targets and “by offsetting its emissions thanks to climate projects abroad and by charging the reductions in emissions thus achieved to its national objective”.

Switzerland has so far signed carbon-offsetting deals with Peru, Ghana, Senegal, Georgia, Dominica and Vanuatu to offset its emissions. Investments will finance biogas plants, solar panels and geothermic energy, as well as programmes aimed at increasing energy efficiency in buildings and electrifying public transport.