On April 7, 2023, the Prime Minister of Thailand was the host of a teleconference between three prime ministers – Thailand, Lao PDR, and Myanmar – to come up with guidelines that could solve the transboundary haze pollution problem they share. The Prime Minister of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Sonexay Siphandone, and the Prime Minister of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, attended the teleconference.
At the conference, all the prime ministers acknowledged the transboundary haze pollution conditions in regional areas and gave their experience and shared information, with the goal of finding out immediate and sustainable procedures and guidelines to solve this crisis.
The Prime Minister of Thailand proposed the “CLEAR Sky Strategy” to solve the problems of transboundary haze pollution. The five parts of CLEAR comprise the following:
1. C (Continued Commitment). This strategy focuses on operating the objective to reduce the heat spots in accordance with the 2017 Chiang Rai operating plan that countries in the Great Mekong Subregion had approved in 2017;
2. L (Leveraging Mechanisms). This strategy takes advantage of related strategies at all levels. Thailand will propose to promote cooperation regarding transboundary haze pollution through related border committee mechanisms. Moreover, the Prime Minister of Thailand will also raise this problem at the 42nd ASEAN summit conference in Indonesia in May 2023;
3. E (Experience Sharing). This strategy includes the sharing of both experience and information, together with legal regulation guidelines in each country that would control the causes of transboundary haze;
4. A (Air Quality Network). It promotes cooperation on the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the subregion’s countries to increase the effectiveness of the weather forecasting and public notifications;
5. R (Effective Response). The Prime Minister urged the senior officers from the three countries to take responsibility for the transboundary haze pollution management. Later in the afternoon, this topic was brought up to expand the results of the leaders’ conference in the morning.
This conference between the three prime ministers was a pioneering event for Thailand. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment proposed that all three prime ministers have a discussion about the most effective guidelines to solve the transboundary haze pollution problems. Because this is an urgent problem, having an effect on health problems and the way of life of populations over a wide area, it is necessary to solve this problem rapidly, with coalitions between all related countries.
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