Last month, Thailand’s cabinet approved the collection of a carbon tax, the second in Southeast Asia after Singapore imposed its own carbon duty in 2019. Bangkok took this bold step right as the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with average temperatures at 1.55 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Multilateral efforts to fight climate change are fracturing. According to a Carbon Brief analysis, just 13 of the 195 signatories to the Paris Agreement met the UN’s Feb. 10 deadline to make new pledges to cut emissions by 2035. Countries that skipped the assignment account for around 80% of both world economic activity and carbon emissions. And the U.S., the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is exiting the Paris Agreement altogether.
