能源技術革新 挽救地球的最後機會

The world faces an unprecedented challenge: to change the high-carbon energy DNA of the global economy in the next three decades to low carbon. This requires directed technological change on a historic scale.

世界面臨史無前例的挑戰：在未來30年將全球經濟的能源DNA從高碳轉變爲低碳。這需要一種歷史性的有控技術革新。

It could well fail, and with failure will come a planet wrecked by climate change. At Tuesday’s UN climate summit, nations began the negotiations to last through 2015 that are our last chance to change course.

這一變革很可能失敗，如果失敗的話，氣候變化將給地球帶來巨大的破壞。在上週二的聯合國(UN)氣候峯會上，各國開始了將持續至2015年的談判，這是我們做出改變的最後機會。

The reasons we need to change course on the economy, energy and environment are diverse and interconnected. They include persistence of extreme poverty and rising inequality; human-induced climate change; the destruction of biodiversity; and, most generally, the many challenges of a large and growing world economy and population that press far too hard on the earth’s fragile ecosystems and resources.

我們需要在經濟、能源和環境方面做出改變，改變的理由是多樣化的、彼此關聯的。這些理由包括：難以根除的極度貧困，日益加重的不平等；人爲導致的氣候變化；生物多樣性遭到破壞；而最主要的理由是，龐大並日益增長的世界經濟和人口帶來了許多挑戰，這對地球脆弱的生態系統和資源造成了極大的壓力。

The question is not the need for change but how to achieve it. The challenges of global-scale social and economic change are profound, not least high levels of inertia visible in the world’s economic and technological systems – industry, energy, transport, production, trade and investment.

問題不在於是否有必要改變，而是如何做出改變。要在全球範圍內從社會和經濟方面做出改變，挑戰是艱鉅的，尤其是全球經濟和技術體系——工業、能源、交通、生產、貿易和投資——存在顯而易見的巨大惰性。

The inertia of the global economy results from several powerful factors: long-term infrastructure, vested interests (perhaps no lobby is more powerful than Big Oil), geopolitical competition, short-termism and massive technological uncertainties and challenges. The world needs to chart a new low-carbon energy trajectory, but what will it be? Of course, different countries will make different choices and should be supported to do so.

全球經濟的惰性源於多個強有力的因素：長期基礎設施建設、既得利益者（或許沒有比大型石油公司更強大的遊說集團了）、地緣政治競爭、短期主義和巨大的技術不確定性和挑戰。世界需要繪製新的低碳能源軌跡，但這種軌跡是什麼樣子？當然，不同的國家將會做出不同的選擇，而且我們也應該支持他們的選擇。

For the politicians, the issue of climate change is deeply unpleasant. It is filled with uncertainty and technical complexity; it involves time horizons far beyond election cycles; it requires patient long-term investments; and it requires new public-private institutions that are no joy to design and implement over the din of lobbyists. And these issues involve counterintuitive choices, such as stranding fossil fuel reserves that have been discovered but cannot safely be burned because of the need to limit carbon emissions.

對政客們來說，氣候變化問題令人頭疼。它充斥着不確定性，技術上也非常複雜；它的時間跨度遠遠長過選舉週期；它需要耐心的長期投資；而且它需要建立新型的公私合作機制——在遊說者的吵吵嚷嚷中，這種機制是很難成功設計和實施的。這些問題還涉及一些違反直覺的選擇，比如停止開採已被發現、但由於需要限制碳排放而無法安全燃燒的化石燃料儲藏。

These considerations have so far caused 22 years of inaction since the signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. So how to move forward? Here’s my take. First, we should hold on for dear life to the globally agreed commitment to keep the rise in mean temperature below 2C. This is not meant to be a target, mind you; it is meant to be an upper limit. By all accounts, right now we are on a 4C-6C trajectory instead.

基於上述問題，世界在自簽署《聯合國氣候變化框架公約》(UNFCCC)以來的22年間無所作爲。那麼應該如何推進進展？我的建議有如下幾點。首先，我們應該堅持全球達成一致的承諾，讓平均氣溫升幅低於2攝氏度。提醒人們注意的是，這並不是目標，而是上限。人人都說，我們現在實際上已經處於氣溫上升4至6攝氏度的軌跡當中。

Second, each of the countries that is a big emitter (and many other high-income and smaller middle-income countries) should agree to design – and present to the world – a country-specific pathway to deep decarbonisation by 2050 that is consistent with the 2C limit. Such deep decarbonisation pathways would provide country-level scenarios of how each of the world’s leading economies proposes to cut emissions to 1-1.5 tons a head by 2050, implying a reduction of about 90 per cent in the US, and about 80 per cent in China and Europe.

其次，每個溫室氣體排放大國（以及其他許多高收入國家和規模較小的中等收入國家），都應該同意設計（並向世界展示）本國到2050年深度脫碳的路徑規劃，該規劃要與氣溫升幅不超過2攝氏度的上限相符。此類深度脫碳規劃應讓我們從國家層面上看到，所有全球主要經濟體計劃如何到2050年將人均排放削減到1-1.5噸——這意味着美國減排約90%，中國和歐洲減排約80%。

Third, the world’s governments and leading businesses (especially in energy, transport, industry and construction) need to undertake a massive and co-operative programme of research, development, demonstration and diffusion of low-carbon technologies. A clear, predictable carbon tax would help those technologies by giving a market-based incentive to shift from carbon; but carbon pricing is not enough to generate the rapid development and uptake of new technologies, or the network infrastructure to deploy them.

第三，世界各國政府和大型企業（尤其是在能源、交通、工業和建築領域）需要大規模地開展合作項目，對低碳技術進行研發、論證和傳播。明確而可預測的碳稅將對放棄高碳提供市場激勵，從而有助於這些技術的發展，但現在的碳價還不足以讓新技術迅速發展和實施，也不足以促進用於實施這些技術的網絡基礎設施的發展。

Such public-private partnerships in low-carbon technologies are not a new type of co-operation. They are familiar from the military sector, informatics, computing, space science, genomics and physics (as in the government-backed hunt for the Higgs boson). Several leading economies are indeed very good at directed technological change. But when it comes to low-carbon energy, we just haven’t really tried.

低碳技術上的此類公私合作並非新的合作模式。它們常見於軍事部門、信息學、計算科學、空間科學、基因組學和物理學領域——尋找希格斯玻色子(Higgs boson)的政府支持項目就是這樣。多個主要經濟體實際上非常擅長於有針對性的技術變革。但就低碳能源來說，我們甚至沒有真正嘗試過。

There is a narrow path up to climate safety. It involves holding on to a clear goal, in this case the 2C limit. It involves finding practical pathways to success for each of the big emitting countries. And it requires a well-funded, generation-long effort to develop the low-carbon technologies that we will need.

通往氣候安全的道路狹窄。它包括堅持明確的目標，也就是2攝氏度的升溫上限。它還包括爲每個排放大國成功減排找到切實可行的道路。它需要資金充裕、長達一代人之久的努力來開發我們需要的低碳技術。

As the politicians met at the UN this week, they had not yet decided on such a bold, co-operative, generation-long effort. Yet our survival depends on it. Tuesday’s gathering will have mattered if its pushes political and business leaders in the direction of survival. We can save our planet and ourselves if we decide to do it. With crucial negotiations ahead in 2015, next year will be the year of decision.

當政客們上週在聯合國會晤之際，他們還沒有就如此大膽、需要一代人之久的合作努力做出決定。然而，這關係到我們的生死存亡。如果上週二的峯會把政界和商界領導人推向爲人類存活而努力的方向，那麼峯會將是具有重要意義的。如果我們決定這麼做，就可以挽救我們的星球和我們自己。2015年將舉行關鍵的談判，那將是決定性的一年。