Bangkok - Thailand's populist policy of slashing petrol prices at the pump to help the poor is expected to increase greenhouse gas emissions by 2,100 tons a day, an environmental think tank said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, the newly installed government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra cut pump prices for diesel and high-octane petrol products by between 3 and 8 baht per litre.
The move is to fulfil a campaign promise to lower the cost of living for the nation's poorest.
The reduced pump prices were designed to cut daily costs for 17 million motorcyclists nationwide, 7 million diesel consumers and one million premium petrol users, or owners of old cars which cannot use gasohol.
While the policy has proved popular among the poor, it has not impressed those who advocate the use of gasohol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependency on imported oil.
The Thailand Environment Institute, a civil society organisation, has estimated that the pump price policy has resulted in Thailand emitting an extra 2,100 tons of greenhouse gases per day.
“The 2,100 tons is a calculation based on the increased consumption of petrol after the new prices were introduced,” the institute's acting president Thongchai Panswad said.
Thailand has been promoting the use of gasohol, a mixture of petrol and alternative fuels made from sugar cane and cassava, since 2007 when the private sector was encouraged to invest in ethanol production and gasohol prices were subsidized at petrol stations to keep them below normal petrol prices.
Yingluck said on Tuesday that the government would further subsidize gasohol prices to keep it marginally cheaper than petrol and diesel.
“That's even worse, because then the gasohol price will be lower and everything will be cheaper and consumption will soar,” Thongchai said.
Yingluck's Pheu Thai party romped to victory in the July 3 general election on a host of populist policies designed to win the votes of the poor, such as boosting minimum wage to 300 baht (about R70 a day) and offering farmers above market prices for crops such as rice.
Economists have warned that the policies could lead to higher inflation, which is already up to four percent this year.
Environmentalists have other worries.
“This government's stated policies say little about the environment. They are more concerned with economic development,” Thongchai said. - Sapa-dpa