2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读十六

Climate change and the threat to companies

气候变化和企业面临的风险

Firms urgently need to rethink how they approach climate risk

企业迫切需要重新考虑如果应对气候风险了

C hief executives who care about climate change—and these days most profess to—often highlight headquarters bedecked with solar panels and other efforts to lower their carbon footprint.

那些关心气候变化的首席执行官们（如今大多数的CEO都自称如此）常常强调，他们的公司总部采用了太阳能电池板以及其他措施来减少碳足迹。

Last week Volkswagen, a carmaker, told its 40,000 suppliers to cut emissions or risk losing its custom.

上周，汽车制造商大众集团要求其4万家供应商减少碳排放，否则他们将面临失去大众这位客户的风险。

Plenty of investors, meanwhile, say they are worried about being saddled with worthless stakes in coal-fired power plants if carbon taxes eventually bite. Yet the reality is that meaningful global environmental regulations are nowhere on the horizon.

与此同时，许多投资者表示，他们担心如果碳排放税最终开始实施，那么他们所持有的燃煤电厂的股票将变得一文不值。然而，现实情况是，有实际意义的全球性环境法规还遥遥无期。

The risk of severe climate change is thus rising, posing physical threats to many firms. Most remain blind to these, often wilfully so. They should start worrying about them.

因此，发生严重气候变化的风险正在上升，这对许多公司构成了实质性的威胁。大多数公司对此视而不见，并且往往是故意如此。但现在他们应该开始担心了。

Nature disrupting supply chains is nothing new. Businesses have coped with floods, droughts and storms since long before the joint-stock company became popular in the 19th century.

自然灾害破坏供应链已经不是什么新鲜事了。早在19世纪股份公司开始流行之前，企业们就已经在应对洪水、干旱和风暴了。

Two things have changed. First, supply chains have grown complex and global (just look at VW). As links have multiplied so, too, have points of possible failure. Many sit in the tropics, more given to weather extremes than the temperate West.

有两件事发生了变化。首先，供应链变得越来越复杂化和全球化了（看看大众公司就知道了）。成倍增长的供应链使得出问题的可能性也增大了。有很多中间链位于热带地区，受极端天气的影响要比处于温带的西方国家更大。

Second, global warming is fuelling more such extremes everywhere. In 2017 Houston experienced its third “500-year flood”in less than four decades, California suffered five of its 20 worst wildfires ever and parts of the Indian subcontinent were underwater for days following epic monsoon downpours.

其次，全球变暖正在世界各地引发更多的极端自然灾害。2017年，休斯顿经历了近40年来的第三次“500年一遇的大洪水”，加州遭受了有史以来20场最严重的山林大火中的5场，印度次大陆的部分地区在季风暴雨过后遭水淹多日。

That year insurers paid out a monumental $135bn in compensation. Another $195bn in estimated losses was uninsured. Power plants often run slow because the river water they use for cooling is too hot.

那一年，保险公司总计支付了1350亿美元的巨额赔款。据估计，另有1950亿的损失并未投保。发电厂常常运行缓慢，因为用于冷却的河水温度过高。

Last year commercial traffic along the Rhine, the world’s busiest waterway, ran aground when rains failed to replenish its sources.