联合国研究表明减排不会影响增长

The risk of runaway climate change can be avoided without seriously denting global economic growth, scientists forecast in the most comprehensive report on global warming yet published.

科学家们在迄今最全面的全球变暖报告中预测，人类可以在不严重影响全球经济增长的前提下避免气候变化失控的风险。

Huge cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, bringing them nearly to zero by the end of this century, need not derail growth says the study by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on global warming.

全球变暖的权威机构——联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)的研究显示，大幅削减温室气体排放，在本世纪末将其降低到接近于零的水平，未必影响经济增长。

Without such deep reductions, there is a danger of more frequent and intense extreme weather, along with rising sea levels and other impacts of a changing climate, the report says. This will add costs that “cannot even be quantified”, said panel chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, at the launch of the study in Copenhagen yesterday.

报告称，如果不进行这样的大幅削减，就有出现更频繁、更剧烈的极端天气的危险，加上海平面不断上升和其他气候变化影响。IPCC主席拉津德•帕乔里(Rajendra Pachauri)博士昨日在哥本哈根举行的报告发布会上表示，这将进一步增加“根本无法量化”的代价。

Global temperatures have already risen by nearly 1C since the industrial revolution and governments agreed in 2010 that warming should not exceed 2C, a threshold scientists say it is risky to breach.

自工业革命以来全球气温已上升了近1℃，各国政府在2010年同意全球变暖不应超过2℃，科学家们表示，突破这个门槛将有失控风险。

Sticking to this limit need only cause an average annual 0.06 percentage point cut in the rate of global consumption, a proxy of economic growth, the IPCC says.

IPCC表示，要把升温幅度限制在这个限度内，只会导致全球年均消费增长率（代表经济增长）减少0.06个百分点。

That still implies big demands on some nations, said a co-author of the report, Dr Ottmar Edenhofer from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “That is an average figure. For some countries this could be quite a huge challenge,” he said, pointing to big oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and African countries planning to exploit their fossil fuel reserves.

报告作者之一、德国波茨坦气候影响研究所(Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)的奥特马尔•埃登霍费尔(Ottmar Edenhofer)博士表示，这对部分国家来说仍意味着很高的要求。他说：“这是个平均数字。对部分国家来说这个数字可能是相当大的挑战。”埃登霍费尔提到了大型石油出口国，如沙特阿拉伯和几个计划开采化石燃料储量的非洲国家。

Another IPCC co-author, Professor Richard Tol of the University of Sussex in the UK, who claimed earlier panel reports were too “alarmist”, said it was possible to question the 0.06 percentage point number in the latest report and how it was derived.

IPCC报告的另一名合著者、曾表示IPCC早先的报告太过“危言耸听”的英国苏塞克斯大学(University of Sussex)教授理查德•托尔(Richard Tol)表示，最新报告提出的0.06个百分点这一数字以及该数字的得出过程仍有质疑空间。

But he added: “Such quibbles would be beside the point. It has been long known that smart policy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a small cost, even for deep cuts.”

但他也表示：“这样的争辩不是关键。人们早就知道，明智的政策能以较低成本削减、甚至大幅削减温室气体排放。”

The trouble was that smart policy would be a carbon tax that was equal for all emissions from all emitters, he said, and “all evidence to date is that governments compete on who can think of the daftest climate policies”, such as subsidies and tax breaks.

他表示，麻烦在于，明智的政策是对所有排放者的所有排放征收相同的碳排放税，但“迄今的所有证据显示，各国政府竞相拿出最离谱的气候政策，”比如补贴和税收减免。

The tone of the IPCC’s latest study is more urgent than previous reports.

IPCC最新的这份研究报告在语气上比之前的报告更加迫切。

It repeats earlier findings that humans have been the dominant cause of the warmer temperatures measured since the 1950s, which are already raising sea levels and melting ice caps.

该报告重复了之前的发现，即人类活动是上世纪50年代起测得的气温升高的主要原因，气温变暖已引起海平面上升和冰盖融化。

Governments have little time to waste, the IPCC says.

IPCC表示，各国政府已没有时间可以浪费。

“Delaying additional mitigation to 2030 will substantially increase the technological, economic, social and institutional challenges associated with limiting the warming over the 21st century to below 2C relative to pre-industrial levels,” it said yesterday.

IPCC昨日表示：“把进一步减排措施推迟到2030年实施，将显著增加在21世纪将升温幅度限制在相对于工业化之前水平不到2℃的技术、经济、社会和体制挑战。”