In Thailand, a new PM_2.5 Control Plan and Clean Air Law are opening up a dialogue around burning restrictions. The authors of this paper systematically assessed the prospects of measures designed to curb open burning in Thailand, using an innovative quantitative methodology.

The team investigated how economic, technical, institutional and social barriers could slow the implementation of the Control Plan. Their research revealed that institutional and social barriers caused the greatest delays, though the authors cautioned that these barriers are not easily incorporated into modeling scenarios because they are difficult to quantify. Using SEI’s Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) and a bespoke dataset, the team analyzed the impact of these barriers in different scenarios. The authors combined these results with financial research on implementation costs and found that:

1. Delays resulting from social/institutional barriers result in nearly double the level of PM_2.5 emissions over a 10- to 20-year period relative to a scenario where policies are implemented effectively.
2. The costs of overcoming social/institutional barriers are approximately USD 14 million annually over a ten-year period. 

The authors recommended that policymakers enable government agencies to collaborate more frequently to tackle open burning; improve the provision of financial resources to regional decision makers, and capitalize on pre-existing training mechanisms to enhance implementation.