节能减排与气候变化的那些事儿

节能减排与气候变化的那些事儿

Curbing climate change

控制气候变化

The deepest cuts

一切为了减排

Our guide to the actions that have done the most toslow global warming

我们的行为指南已经最大限度减缓了全球变暖

ON SEPTEMBER 23rd 120-odd presidents and prime ministers will gather in New York for a UNmeeting on climate change. It is the first time the subject has brought so many leaderstogether since the ill-fated Copenhagen summit of 2009. Now, as then, they will assert thatreining in global warming is a political priority. Some may commit their governments to policiesaimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. What few will say is how many tonnes of carbondioxide these will save—because they almost never do.

9月23日，120多位国家总统和首相将会汇聚纽约联合国总部，就气候变化议题举行会议。这是自2009年一无所获的哥本哈根气候大会之后，国家元首们第一次为了此项议题聚会。就像当时一样，他们如今也一致认为控制全球变暖是政治的头等大事。一些元首们也许会承诺实行以削减温室气体排放为目标的相关政策。但很少人能明确说出这些政策最终将减少多少吨二氧化碳排放量—因为根本没效果。

According to scientists, cutting carbon-dioxide emissions is an essential part of reducing catastrophic risks from climate change. Yet governments are persistently averse to providingestimates of how much carbon a policy saves. That may be because, in countries where climatechange is controversial, it makes more sense to talk about the other benefits a scheme offersrather than its effect on carbon. Or it may be that, in countries which

are enthusiastic aboutrenewable energy, pointing out that it may not save that much carbon is seen as unhelpful. Orperhaps governments think climate change is so serious that all measures must be taken,regardless of cost (though

their overall lacklustre record suggests this is not the case).

科学家表示，减少二氧化碳排放量是缓解由气候变化导致的灾难性后果的重要一步。但政府自始至终都不愿意预估他们的政策到底能少排多少碳。这也许是因为，在那些对气候变化仍存争议的国家，政府更愿意显示他们实行的其他福利政策是多么有效，而非低碳减排。或者在那些热衷于再生能源的国家，指出政府政策并没有减少那么多碳排放也于事无补。或者政府认为气候变化太重要了，可以不惜一切代价来完成（不过总的来看，根据他们拖拖拉拉的表现，这是不可能的）。

Whatever the reason, the end result is that while the world's governments have hundreds ofpolicies for tackling climate change, some of them very expensive—China, America and theEuropean Union spend $140 billion a year on subsidising renewable energy—it is hard to saywhich policies are having the greatest effect.

不管什么原因，结果就是尽管世界各个政府出台了几百条治理气候变化的政策，有的还代价高昂—中国、美国和欧盟每年花费1400亿补贴再生能源——很难说哪些政策是最有效的。So The Economist has made a stab at a global comparison of carbon-mitigation efforts.Chart 1 is the result. It ranks 20 policies and courses of action according to how much theyhave done to reduce the atmosphere's stock of greenhouse gases. We have used figuresfrom governments, the EU and UN agencies. As far as we know, this exercise has not beencarried out before.

因此，《经济学家》尝试制作了一张全球各国碳减排成果的比较图。图表1是结果，列出了前20个政策和行动方案以及每个政策方案的大气层温室气体的减少量。我们使用了政府、欧盟和联合国各机构公布的数据。据我们所知，以前还没有人做过这样的比较。Apples, meet oranges

当苹果遇见橘子

First, a health warning: the policies and actions on our list are not strictly comparable. Someare global, some regional and some national. Some are long-standing; some new. A couple arenot policies at all, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to the closure of pollutingfactories and to inefficient state farms reverting to grassland, locking up carbon.

首先有个温馨提示：本次列出的政策和行动方案严格来说是不可比较的。一些是全球范围的，一些是区域性或国家层面的。一些是长期执行的，另一些是新政。有几条并不能算是政策，比如由苏联解体导致的污染工厂关门、效率底下的国有农场复归草原，锁住了碳。

And the numbers almost all come with caveats. It is fairly easy to estimate how much carbon anew field full of solar cells or a nuclear-power plant saves by