Muang's Yasothon municipality has come seventh in the "One Planet City Challenge" event this year, thanks to its energy saving initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A total of 132 cities from 23 countries entered the competition sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which began the event in 2011. Sustainable transport and mobility was this year's theme and the overall winner was the city of Uppsala in Sweden.
"This small province has made us care about its determination to reduce greenhouse gasses," said Gordon Hall Congdon JR, WWF conservation programme manager, at the presentation ceremony on Monday.
Veerawat Paknikorn, the mayor of Yasothon municipality, said that the people in the province had provided full cooperation, which was the key element of the success.
He said that the city has promoted "a one motorbike one family" policy, to encourage people to reduce their consumption of fossil fuel, together with a plan to set up a tram service to reduce traffic congestion.
The city, which came top among 10 contestants from Thailand, has set up a "Yasothon Low Carbon Action Plan", which also hopes to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the plan, the municipality will cut all local authority emissions by 20% by 2021 from the baseline figure recorded in 2013. It is also hoped that residents will join the effort to reduce their own carbon footprint by the same proportion over this time frame.
