UPCOMING EVENT: Toward’s Thailand’s Green Transformation: Research on Emerging Challenges and Opportunities

Please register here.

Public Seminar (Hybrid event)  

Toward’s Thailand’s Green Transformation:  

Research on Emerging Challenges and Opportunities 

29 July 2025: 10:00 – 15:00  

Alumni Meeting Room, 12th Floor, Kasem Udyanin Building  

(Faculty of Political Science Building 3), Chulalongkorn University 

Co-organized by: Center for Social Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University; Climate Finance Network Thailand; Local Alike; Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Thailand; Sustainable Development Foundation; Towards Organic Asia

Attaining green transformation is the challenge that will define the 21st Century. Ambitious vision and leadership are needed that can bring together diverse actors around pathways that are sustainable, peaceful, and just. While a global challenge, achieving green transformation in practice requires action in innumerable localities that is democratized, accountable and inclusive. Actionable knowledge is needed to guide green transformation that is produced inclusively involving those directly affected by sustainability challenges.  

The ‘Just Futures Mekong Fellowship Program’ (JFMFP) is a capacity strengthening and research program launched in July 2024 that supports young individuals to address pressing environmental and social challenges through research, collaboration, and regional dialogue. JFMFP has been undertaken as a partnership between the Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Chulalongkorn University and five organizations in Thailand who co-host this public seminar. The themes of the fellowship program have encompassed: organic farming and agroecology; coastal community resource governance; community based tourism; and climate change, including farmer climate adaptation and climate finance. 

At the heart of the JFMFP is the co-creation of knowledge and solutions through collaborative research. At this public seminar, the key insights of these research projects and their implications for policy and practice will be shared by the JFMFP fellows, their host organization partners and other collaborators. Alongside the presentations, poster presentations and a photograph exhibition will detail the research.  

The meeting will be held in English. Simultaneous translation will be available between Thai and English. 

Please register here.

Agenda (draft)

Time	Item
9:00 – 10:00	Registration / Exhibition walk
10:00 – 10:15	Welcome remarks Carl Middleton, Director, Center for Social Development Studies
Session 1: Community-led transformations in food and climate adaptation
10:15 – 10:45	“Walking Alongside Communities: Supporting Community-led Adaptation Resilience beyond Climate Change in Northern Thailand‘s Highlands” Introduction to community role-play game • Presenter: Shao Meng (JFMFP) “From Trust to Recognition: Strengthening a Participatory and Community-grounded Seed System in Thailand” • Presenter: Zhou Yuting (JFMFP)
10:45 – 11:15	Commentary and Q&A: • Dr. Chaya Vaddhanaphuti, Chiang Mai University • Kingkorn Narintarakul Na Ayutdhaya Moderator: Narumon Paiboonsittikun (TOA)
Session 2: Electric Vehicles and Thailand’s Green Transformation
11:15 – 12:15	Opening Presentation: “Can Chinese EV Investment contribute to Thailand’s Green Transformation?” • Presenter: Yuan Ye (JFMFP) Panel discussion: • Sarinee Achavanuntakul, CFNT • Jinmei Liu, Friends of Nature • Somnuck Jongmeewasin, EEC WATCH Moderator: Yu Yin
12:15 – 13:00	Lunch
Session 3: Local development – Challenges, Opportunities and Ways Forward
13:00 – 13:30	“Connecting Thailand’s Community-based Tourism to Chinese Travelers: Local Voices, Emerging Trends, and Collaboration” • Presenter: Xueying Mai (JFMFP) “Camera, Community, and the Act of Claiming: Visual Participation and Everyday Struggles for the Right to Stay in Coastal Thailand” • Presenter: Jiao Xiaofang (JFMFP) Film showing
13:30 – 14:00	Commentary and Q&A: • Wanvipa Phanumat (Local Alike) • Dr. Peerada Phumisawat, (Thailand National Human Rights Commission) Moderator: t.b.c
Session 4: Synthesis: Towards green transformation through co-produced knowledge
14:00 – 15:00	Panelists: • Sarinee Achavanuntakul, Climate Finance Network Thailand • Tianjie Ma, Advisor to JFMFP • Supa Yaimuang, Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Thailand • Ravadee Prasertcharoensuk, Sustainable Development Foundation • Kittipon Phummisuttikul, Towards Organic Asia • Wanvipa Phanumat, Local Alike Q&A Moderator: Carl Middleton
Session 5: Concluding Remarks
15:00 – 15:15	Professor Surichai Wun'gaeo, Chulalongkorn University

UPCOMING EVENT: Climate Change, Mobility and Human Rights [24 November 2022]

Climate Change, Mobility and Human Rights: ‘Slow-onset’ Environmental Change and Displacement in the Mekong Region

24 November 2022, Online (broadcast on CSDS Facebook page; participate via Zoom with registration) and in-person at Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand 

Co-organizers: Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Chulalongkorn University; Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy; Raoul Wallenberg Institute Regional Asia Pacific Office; and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights

Please download the final agenda with speakers here.

Please register to join the event here.

The connection between climate change and peoples’ mobility is increasingly recognized in academic and policy circles, and popular media. Most visible are the impacts of disasterous events such as flooding on forced displacement, but slow onset environmental changes such as sea level rise and changing seasonal weather patterns are nowadays also crucial in shaping human mobility (or ‘environmental migration’) in various ways. In slow-onset processes, the changing climate intersects with other ongoing economic and social development activities and their associated environmental impacts which influence situations of vulnerability, for example the construction of large hydropower dams. As a result, there is significant debate on how to understand the relationship between pre-existing conditions, slow-onset climate change and human mobility. This lack of consensus has implications for law and policy, as well as responses on-the-ground. 

Climate change poses threats to human rights, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to shelter, and the right to food, and many others amplifying the impacts of structural inequalities and injustices. There is a growing recognition within human rights literature, international and national law, and among practitioners, of the connection between environmental change including climate change, mobility and human rights. These studies are now establishing a framework for determining the duties of states, and the entitlements of rights-holders. Governments in mainland Southeast Asia are increasingly making commitments and policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation, yet human mobility due to ‘slow-onset’ climate change seems to be less acknowledged and addressed.

This full day hybrid public seminar will address the following questions, with a focus on mainland Southeast Asia.

• How are climate change, people’s mobility and human rights connected?

• What is the experience on the ground?

• Is current law and policy adequate to address emerging vulnerabilities, especially regarding ‘slow onset’ environmental change?

• What are the actionable polices and on-the-ground approaches to protect and promote human rights?

• What are the implications for ‘loss and damage’ claims and climate justice?

For enquiries, please contact Dr. Carl Middleton.