Climate modelling and futures scenarios: Civil society perceptions of and proposed solutions for air pollution’s effects on health and wellbeing in two Thai cities

In Thailand—the fourth most polluted nation in Southeast Asia—air pollution is estimated to take an average three years off people’s lives. While all of Thailand’s 68 million people live in areas that exceed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines for airborne fine particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM_2.5), Bangkok and Chiang Mai in particular (the focus of this study) are among the provinces carrying the highest health burden.

Currently, while the science behind air pollution is unequivocal, its public representation is, with official accounts perpetuating existing inequities by narrowly determining how crises are defined and selectively narrating who is impacted by them—pushing civil society voices to the fringes of public conversations on air pollution. To decenter this inequity, this study uses innovative participatory futures methods to gather civil society perspectives on the plausible, possible, and probable future solutions to air pollution and its impact on people’s health as well as social and economic implications on wellbeing. This is to ensure that civil society perspectives on solutions inform future advocacy, policy, and programmatic recommendations for addressing air pollution.

This research proposes to use modelling and air quality forecasting (the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Low Emissions Analysis Platform, Integrated Benefits Calculator) to create four sets of projections for air pollution 30 years from now (in 2053) that will then form the basis for four futures scenarios to be presented to civil society study participants as a direct form of citizen engagement.

Based on modelling results, scientists, subject matter experts, and civil society stakeholders will be engaged in online scenario-building workshops to create four futures scenarios. For instance, health, economic, political, and social implications will be generated from workshop dialogue, informed by model projections, and used to construct imaginary narratives within each of the four futures scenarios (that will then serve as the basis for the futures visioning interviews with civil society participants). Final scenarios will include depictions of social, economic, and health standards for Thai people in 2053. Once the four scenarios have been developed and stress tested, online individual participatory futures interviews will be conducted with civil society participants based in Bangkok and Chiang Mai (n=20 per city to reach an inductive thematic saturation point for primary data collection), using a blend of purposive (selective) sampling and snowball sampling methods. The University of Hawaii’s Manoa Futures Visioning Process and Krishnan’s decolonial futures/foresight framework will be employed to ensure an equitable and participant-centered approach.

Data collection and analysis will be completed by the start of the EGU General Assembly in April 2023; the AS5.13 session will be used to share experiences and lessons learned through integrating climate modelling with citizen science within this study to inform potential regional futures work within South and Southeast Asia (and beyond). Results from the study will inform the work that the Thailand Clean Air Network is doing regarding air quality policy advocacy in Thailand, among other avenues.