![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/317074.jpg\" "\\"Dr")
<\/p>\nBANGKOK, Dec 29 \u2014 A finance specialist who struggled after running in smog and a doctor who fears for the health of his children are among the activists spearheading landmark air pollution legislation in Thailand despite political uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Each winter, large parts of Thailand are plagued by haze caused by weather patterns, seasonal burning, vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions.<\/p>\n
Years of efforts to tackle the problem, including work-from-home policies and rules on crop stubble burning, have done little to alleviate the issue.<\/p>\n
Now, there is a glimmer of hope for fresh action in the form of the Clean Air bill, which would enshrine the right to breathable air, tax emitters and offer public information on the sources of pollution.<\/p>\n
Wirun Limsawart, who has helped lead the push for the measure as part of the Thailand Clean Air Network (CAN), grew up in southern Nakhon Si Thammarat.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until he returned to Thailand in 2018 after a decade abroad that he realised the scale of the country\u2019s pollution problem.<\/p>\n
He began to worry about the impact of the dirty air on his three children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made me question my role as an anthropologist and a doctor,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Wirun Limsawart, co-founder of the Thailand Clean Air Network, at Thailand\u2019s Parliament in Bangkok on December 4, 2025. \u2014 AFP pic<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
The son of a seamstress and a mechanic, Wirun was a straight-A student who studied at one of Thailand\u2019s top medical schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents always showed me what it meant to genuinely care for others in their work, so that kind of embedded in me,\u201d the 49-year-old said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chose a career path that allowed me to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n
His life has been marked by illness.<\/p>\n
In his early twenties, Wirun collapsed on a bus and was diagnosed with a brain tumour.<\/p>\n
After chemotherapy and years of follow-up tests, the experience deepened his desire to better understand patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role was switched to become a patient… I wanted to genuinely understand patients from a doctor\u2019s perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
After eight years as a general practitioner in some of Thailand\u2019s poorest and most remote regions, he obtained a master\u2019s degree and PhD in anthropology at Harvard University.<\/p>\n
He now works at the Ministry of Public Health as an anthropological doctor, blending medical research with studying human behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u2018My problem too\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Wirun\u2019s pollution worries led him to a panel discussion in Bangkok on the issue in 2019, and the conversations evolved into CAN, which has spent several years advancing clean air legislation.<\/p>\n More than 20,000 people backed the group\u2019s call for action \u2013 surpassing the threshold for public-initiated legislation \u2013 and a draft bill passed the Thai parliament\u2019s lower house in October.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make emitters responsible,\u201d Wirun said.<\/p>\n But that goal is facing a new hurdle after Thailand\u2019s prime minister dissolved parliament this month, putting the bill on hold.<\/p>\n Still, the measure could be brought back after general elections early next year, if there is political will, according to Weenarin Lulitanonda, CAN\u2019s co-founder.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Thailand, and particularly in the very highly uncertain political environment, one of the things that Thais are certain of is a huge amount of uncertainty,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, honestly, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess. We really don\u2019t know until general elections are held.\u201d<\/p>\n Weenarin Lulitanonda, co-founder of Thailand Clean Air Network, speaks to AFP about the Clean Air Bill in Bangkok on November 20, 2025. \u2014 AFP pic<\/p>\n An outdoor run in 2018 drew Weenarin into clean air activism. The experience left her with a piercing headache she later learned was caused by Bangkok\u2019s seasonal smog.<\/p>\n More than 10 million people required treatment for pollution-related health problems in Thailand in 2023, according to the health ministry.<\/p>\n Weenarin had previously lived in New Zealand and never worried about air quality, but the more she looked into the issue, the more she was determined to do something about it.<\/p>\n \u201cHow is it possible that (in Thailand) someone has no information about what they are breathing?\u201d she said, recalling the question that pushed her into activism.<\/p>\n Having studied finance and worked at the World Bank, Weenarin began contacting experts to understand the problem before helping establish CAN.<\/p>\n She said her motivation is simple: \u201cIf there were an alternative to breathing, I wouldn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n Clean-air reforms rarely start with governments or businesses, Weenarin said, and she worries too few Thais see the crisis as their problem.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t vote for anybody who doesn\u2019t have clean air legislation as a key political manifesto and a commitment… follow them, become the political watchdog that we all need to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She is determined to keep fighting though, so \u201cenough Thais wake up and say this is my problem too\u201d. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANGKOK, Dec 29 \u2014 A finance specialist who struggled after running in smog and a doctor who fears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[132571,132575,18,440,132574,19,17,133,132573,132570,132572],"class_list":{"0":"post-255888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-air-pollution-legislation-thailand","9":"tag-can-clean-air-advocacy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-health-impacts-pollution-thailand","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-seasonal-smog-bangkok","17":"tag-thailand-clean-air-bill","18":"tag-wirun-limsawart-activist"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115802305031413570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Weenarin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/317075.jpg\" "\\"Weenarin")
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