后哥本哈根：我们必须另谋出路

After 12 days of protests, posturing and seemingly endless palaver, the elephantine gathering that was the Copenhagen climate summit has laboured mightily and brought forth . . . a mouse. As vague as it is toothless, the accord on curbing greenhouse gas emissions that emerged from the Bella Centre this weekend imposes no real obligations, sets no binding emissions targets and requires no specific actions by anyone.

哥本哈根气候峰会历时12天，期间抗议不断，与会者做尽姿态、说尽空话。为举办这次大象级的会议，人们大费周章，取得的成果却小如老鼠。相关方面在贝拉中心(Bella Centre)签署的抑制温室气体排放协议含糊其辞、软弱无力，既未规定切实责任、设定具有约束力的排放目标，也未要求任何一方采取具体行动。

So should we be disappointed? Well, actually, no. It is not that man-made global warming isn't real or that we don't need to take meaningful action to combat it. It is and we do.

那么，我们应该感到失望吗？事实上，不。人类导致的全球变暖并非不是事实，我们也并非无需采取切实行动来应对。全球确实在变暖，我们的确需要行动起来。

Nonetheless, the dismal outcome of the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference should make us hopeful. Why? Because its failure may be just the wake-up call the world has needed – the splash of cold water that may finally get us to face the facts about what works and what does not work to cure climate change.

但是，第15届联合国气候变化会议的可悲成果，仍应使我们怀抱希望。为什么呢？因为这次会议的失败或许正是唤醒世界的一记必要的警钟——泼到我们头上的冷水，或许终于促使我们正视现实，明白要抑制气候变化，什么会起作用，什么不会起作用。

For 17 years now, ever since the Rio “Earth Summit” back in 1992, the effort to combat global warming has been dominated by a single idea – the notion that the only solution is to drastically cut carbon emissions. Anyone incautious enough to suggest that there might be more effective ways of controlling climate change, or that it is simply not politically or economically feasible to try to force a world that gets 80 per cent of its energy from carbon-emitting fossil fuels to suddenly change its ways, was dismissed as a crackpot or, worse, a secret global-warming denier. The fact that the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen approach to global warming was clearly getting us nowhere was apparently one of those inconvenient truths that people prefer to ignore.

自1992年里约“地球峰会”至今已有17年，应对全球变暖的努力始终遵循一个单一的思想，即唯一的解决方法就是大幅削减碳排放。如果有人贸然提议，在控制气候变化方面也许存在更有效的方法；或提议，试图迫使这个80%能源来自排放碳的化石燃料的世界骤然改弦易辙，不论从政治上还是从经济上来说，都是完全行不通的，此人就会被视为疯子、甚至是暗地里否认全球变暖之辈。应对全球变暖的里约-京都-哥本哈根路径显然毫无成效，对于这个明显令人不快的现实，人们宁愿不予理睬。

Well, call me a cock-eyed optimist, but Copenhagen's failure strikes me as being too abject to ignore. For all of President Barack Obama's talk of an “unprecedented breakthrough”, all the world leaders really did was try to paper over their differences with a three-page communiqué that basically asks us to cross our fingers and hope for the best. They would have done better to have acknowledged their impotence and gone home empty-handed. Never has the fundamental bankruptcy of the carbon-cutting strategy seemed more obvious.

你可以把我视为一位荒唐的乐观主义者，但哥本哈根会议失败得如此之惨，不容我们对此不闻不问。虽然美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)大谈什么“空前的突破”，世界各国领导人真正做的，却是试图以一份三页长的会议公报，来掩盖他们之间的分歧。这份公报基本上是要求我们交叉手指祈祷，并尽量朝好的方面想。他们还不如承认自己无能为力、然后空手而回呢。减排策略的彻底失败从未显得如此醒目。

So I am hopeful that political leaders may finally be ready to face the truth about global warming – namely, that if we are serious about wanting to solve it, we need to adopt a new approach. Promising to cut carbon emissions may make us feel virtuous, but that is all it does. If we actually want to cool down the planet, we need policies that are technologically smarter, politically more feasible and economically more efficient.

因此我心存希望，在全球变暖方面，政治领导人或许终于要面对以下事实：如果我们确实希望解决问题，我们就必须采取新的方法。承诺减少碳排放或许会使我们显得高尚，但其意义不过如此。假如我们确实希望让这个星球变凉，我们就需要技术上更高明、政治上更可行、经济上更有效的策略。

The stark lesson of Copenhagen is that the world is neither willing nor able to go cold turkey when it comes to ending its addiction to fossil fuels. The problem, particularly for China, India, and the rest of the developing world, is that there simply are not any affordable alternatives.

哥本哈根的一大教训是，世界既不愿、也无法骤然中止对化石燃料的依赖。问题在于，根本不存在人们负担得起的替代能源——这一点对中国、印度及其它发展中国家来说尤其如此。

Keep in mind that global energy demand is expected to double by 2050. What this means is that if we want to reduce (if not actually eliminate) our use of fossil fuels without totally crippling the world economy, we are going to have to increase our reliance on green energy technologies by several orders of magnitude.

记住，到2050年，全球能源需求预计将会翻倍。这意味着，假如我们希望减少（如果不是全然戒除）对化石燃料的使用，同时避免让全球经济陷入瘫痪，我们就必须把对绿色能源技术的依赖程度提高几个数量级。

In a paper for the Copenhagen Consensus Centre in July 2009, Isabel Galiana and Professor Chris Green of McGill University examined the state of non-carbon based energy today – including nuclear, wind, solar and geothermal energy – and came to some disconcerting conclusions. Based on present rates of progress, they found that, taken together, alternative energy sources could, if hugely scaled up, get us less than halfway towards a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a fraction of the way towards stabilisation by 2100. The technology will simply not be ready in terms of scalability or stability. In many cases, the most basic research and development is still required. We are not even close to getting the needed technological revolution started.

麦基尔大学(McGill University)的伊莎贝尔•加利亚娜(Isabel Galiana)以及克里斯•格林(Chris Green)教授在2009年7月为哥本哈根共识中心(Copenhagen Consensus Centre)撰写的一篇论文中，阐述了非碳能源（包括核能、风能、太阳能和地热能）的现状，得出了一些令人不安的结论。他们发现，综合起来考虑，按照当前的发展速度，即便替代能源大幅增加，我们距到2050年保持碳排放稳定的目标也仍有一大半路要走，距到2100年保持碳排放稳定的目标则更为遥远。在可量测性或稳定性方面，技术届时肯定不会成熟。许多领域仍需要进行最基本的研发。我们甚至谈不上即将展开必要的技术革命。

The Copenhagen accord attempts to deal with this reality by offering a vague promise that developed nations will eventually contribute as much as 0bn a year to help poor countries cope with climate change. If this money were to be spent on helping developing countries adapt to climate change, the pledge might make sense, since it would be likely to make a real and immediate difference in people's quality of life. But that is not where the money is supposed to go. The text of the agreement specifies that most if not all of the funds are to be spent “in the context of meaningful mitigation.” In other words, the money would be used to subsidise carbon cuts, a pointless exercise that would do nothing to ameliorate current miseries – and at best might reduce temperatures slightly a century from now.

为应对这一现实，哥本哈根协议做出一项含糊的承诺：发达国家最终每年将捐出1000亿美元，用于帮助穷国应对气候变化。假如这些资金用于帮助穷国适应气候变化，那么这项承诺或许有些意义，因为这可能对人们的生活质量产生实质而即时的影响。但是，这并非这些资金的预期用途。根据协议文本，大部分资金（如果不是全部）将在“有意义的减排的背景下”使用。换句话说，资金将用于补贴削减碳排放的行为。此举毫无意义，完全无助于改善当前困境——充其量可能在今后一个世纪内略微降低气温。

But what if we put these funds to better use? What if, instead of condemning billions of people around the world to continued poverty by trying to make carbon-emitting fuels more expensive, we devoted ourselves to making green energy cheaper? As solutions go, it is quicker, more efficient and far less painful.

可要是我们把这些资金用在更好的地方呢？要是我们致力于降低绿色能源的成本，而非试图通过提高排放碳的燃料的成本，迫使全世界数十亿人口继续生活在贫困之中呢？就解决方法而言，降低绿色能源成本更加快捷、更有成效，所造成的痛苦也小得多。

Right now, solar panels cost so much that only well-heeled, well-meaning westerners can afford to install them. But if we could make them or other green energy technologies cheaper than fossil fuels over the next 20 to 40 years – and there is no reason to think that we cannot – we would not have to force (or subsidise) anyone to stop burning carbon-emitting fuels. Everyone, including the Chinese and the Indians, would shift to the cheaper and cleaner alternatives – solving global warming.

目前，由于太阳能面板成本过高，只有既富裕又好心的西方人安装得起。但是，如果在今后20至40年内，我们能够使它们或其它绿色能源技术变得比化石燃料更便宜（没有理由认为我们做不到），我们就不用去迫使（或补贴）人们停止燃烧排放碳的燃料。每个人，包括中国人和印度人，届时都会转而使用更廉价、更清洁的替代能源——从而解决全球变暖问题。

So how do we get to this happy place? We need to increase spending on green-energy R&D by a factor of 50. For 0.2 per cent of global gross domestic product, or 0bn a year, we could bring about the technological breakthroughs it will take to make green energy cheaper and fuel our carbon-free future. For both developed and developing world governments, it would be a lot more politically palatable than carbon cuts.

那么，我们如何抵达“幸福的彼岸”呢？我们必须把绿色能源研发支出增加到现在的50倍。用全球年国内生产总值(GDP)的0.2%（即1000亿美元），我们有望取得必要的技术突破，降低绿色能源的成本，实现无碳未来。对发达国家和发展中国家的政府来说，这在政治上要比减少碳排放可行得多。

The millions of concerned people around the world who put their hopes in Copenhagen may have been bitterly disappointed by the paltry outcome. But the summit's failure could be a blessing in disguise. For the last 17 years, we have been putting the cart before the horse, pretending we could cut carbon emissions now and solve the technology problem later. Perhaps now, as they limp home from Copenhagen, our leaders will recognise the deep flaws in their current approach and chart a smarter course.

全球不计其数的人曾把希望寄托在哥本哈根上，会议的微小成果或许使他们深感失望。但是，这次峰会的失败或许是“塞翁失马”。过去17年里，我们一直本末倒置，假装我们能够在今日削减碳排放、在明日解决技术问题。如今，我们的领导人在从哥本哈根蹒跚而回时，或许会承认他们当前的做法存在深深的缺陷，并在随后描绘出一条更为明智的路线。

The writer is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and author of Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist

本文作者是哥本哈根共识中心主任，著有《Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist》一书。