City-wide greenhouse gas emissions of communities nearby the world heritage site of Ayutthaya, Thailand

Abstract

Climate change has emerged one of the greatest threats to sustainable development. Cities are a major contributor to high carbon dioxide levels. This research aimed to quantify city-wide GHG emissions and investigate the potential for climate change mitigation in communities near the World Heritage Site (WHS) of Ayutthaya, Thailand via the multi-criteria analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The total city-wide GHG emission of Ayutthaya Municipality in 2018 was 99,137.04 tCO2eq (1.93 tCO2eq per capita). Energy and waste sectors were the two largest emitters. Pratuchai, the most populated subdistrict and the WHS location, was the largest source of GHGs. However, the cultural heritage site emitted only 0.2% of total GHGs. Based on the IPCC2013 LCA method, residential sector accounted for the largest share (74%), while the WHS contributed only < 1% of total energy-related CO2 emissions. If all the Thailand’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Roadmap are fully implemented in the residential sector, total GHGs would be reduced by 9735.47% tCO2eq and 6846.86 tCO2eq in 2030. Based on expert interviews, AHP pairwise comparison showed that energy-saving strategies were more preferable than renewable energy technologies. For climate policy initiative, ‘feasibility of implementation’ had the highest AHP weight (0.45) followed by ‘policy feasibility’ (0.39), and ‘environmental performance’ (0.16).