聯合國警告應對氣候變化迫在眉睫

COPENHAGEN — The gathering risks of climate change are so profound they could stall or even reverse generations of progress against poverty and hunger if greenhouse emissions continue at a runaway pace, according to a major new United Nations report.

哥本哈根——據聯合國新發布的一份重要報告，氣候變化彙集的風險如此巨大，如果溫室氣體繼續以失控的速度排放，有可能會讓幾代人在消除貧困和飢餓上取得的進步停滯甚至逆轉。

Despite rising efforts in many countries to tackle the problem, the overall global situation is growing more acute as developing countries join the West in burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said here on Sunday.

政府間氣候變化專門委員會週日在這裏表示，儘管許多國家爲解決這個問題做出了更多的努力，但全球整體形勢日益嚴重，因爲發展中國家正加入西方國家的行列來燃燒大量的化石燃料。

Failure to reduce emissions, the group of scientists and other experts found, could threaten society with food shortages, refugee crises, the flooding of major cities and entire island nations, mass extinction of plants and animals, and a climate so drastically altered it might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year.

這個由科學家和其他專家組成的委員會調查發現，不減少溫室氣體排放會給社會帶來各種威脅，包括糧食短缺、難民危機、大城市和整個島國被洪水淹沒、動植物物種大滅絕，以及氣候極大幅度的變化、以至於在一年中最熱的時候人們外出工作或玩耍可能會有危險。

"Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems," the report declared.

報告宣佈，“溫室氣體的繼續排放將導致進一步變暖，將讓氣候系統所有組成部分發生持久性的變化，增加給人類和生態系統製造嚴重、普遍和不可逆轉的影響的可能性。”

In the starkest language it has ever used, the expert panel made clear how far society remains from having any serious policy to limit global warming.

這個專家委員會用迄今最嚴厲的措辭明確指出，人類社會距採取任何嚴肅政策來限制全球變暖方面還差得很遠。

Doing so would require finding a way to leave the vast majority of the world's reserves of fossil fuels in the ground, or alternatively, developing methods to capture and bury the emissions resulting from their use, the group said.

委員會說，這樣做需要找到一種讓世界上化石燃料儲量的絕大部分留在地下的方法，或者找到捕捉及掩埋使用化石燃料所產生的排放的方法。

If governments are to meet their own stated goal of limiting the warming of the planet to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level, they must restrict emissions from additional fossil-fuel burning to about 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, the panel said.

委員會表示，各國政府要想實現他們自己表述的限制地球溫度上升的目標，即溫度上升不超過工業化前水平的2攝氏度，就必須把燃燒更多化石燃料的排放總量限制在1萬億噸二氧化碳左右。

At current growth rates, that budget is likely to be exhausted in something like 30 years. Yet energy companies have already booked coal and petroleum reserves equal to several times that amount, and they are spending some $600 billion a year to find more. Utilities and oil companies are still building coal-fired power plants and refineries, and governments are spending another $600 billion directly subsidizing the consumption of fossil fuels.

按照目前的增長速度，這個排放總量很可能在大約30年內用完。然而，能源公司已經找到的煤炭和石油儲量相當於這個上限的幾倍，而且他們每年還在花約6000億美元（約合3.7萬億元人民幣）尋找更多的儲量。電力公司和石油企業仍在建設燃煤電廠和煉油廠，政府爲化石燃料的消費還另外提供6000億美元的直接補貼。

By contrast, the report found, less than $400 billion a year is being spent around the world to reduce emissions or otherwise cope with climate change. That sum is smaller than the revenue of a single American oil company, ExxonMobil.

報告發現，與此相比，全世界每年花在減少排放或用其他方式應對氣候變化上的錢不到4000億美元。這個總數不及一家美國石油公司、埃克森美孚公司一年的營業收入。

The new report comes just a month before international delegates convene in Lima, Peru, in an effort to devise a new global treaty or other agreement to limit emissions, and it makes clear the urgency of their task.

新報告在世界各國的代表將在祕魯首都利馬集會前的僅僅一個月出臺，是爲了促成一個限制排放的新全球性條約或其他協議，也明確指明瞭這項任務的緊迫性。

Appearing at a news conference in Copenhagen Sunday morning to unveil the report, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, issued an urgent appeal for strong action in Lima.

在哥本哈根週日上午爲公佈報告舉行的新聞發佈會上，聯合國祕書長潘基文(Ban Ki-moon)對在利馬採取強有力的行動發出緊急呼籲。

"Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message," Mr. Ban declared. "Leaders must act. Time is not on our side."

潘基文說，“科學已經曉諭。其信息毫不含糊。領導者必須採取行動。時間並不對我們有利。”

Yet there has been no sign that national leaders are willing to discuss allocating the trillion-ton emissions budget among countries, an approach that would raise political and moral questions of fairness. To the contrary, they are moving toward a relatively weak agreement that would essentially let each country decide for itself how much effort to put into limiting global warming, and even that document would not take effect until 2020.

然而，迄今還沒有跡象表明各國領導人願意討論如何在國家間分配這個1萬億噸的排放總量，這種討論會引起有關公平的政治和道德問題。與此相反，他們正在採取行動達成一項相對弱的協議，基本上讓各國自行決定爲限制全球變暖做出多少努力，而且就連這個協議也只是在2020年纔會生效。

"If they choose not to talk about the carbon budget, they're choosing not to address the problem of climate change," said Myles R. Allen, a scientist at Oxford University in Britain who helped write the new report. "They might as well not bother to turn up for these meetings."

“如果他們選擇不討論碳排放總量，他們等於選擇不解決氣候變化問題，”幫助起草新報告的英國牛津大學科學家邁爾斯·R·艾倫(Myles R. Allen)說。“他們乾脆不用去開這些會議。”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body appointed by the world's governments to advise them on the causes and effects of global warming, and potential solutions. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with Al Gore, for its efforts to call attention to the climate crisis.

政府間氣候變化專門委員會是由世界各國政府任命的人組成的科學機構，其作用是給各國政府就全球氣候變暖的原因和影響、以及可能的解決方案出主意。2007年的諾貝爾和平獎授予了該機構，獎勵其呼籲人們關注氣候危機的努力，一起獲獎的還有阿爾·戈爾(Al Gore)。

The new report is a 175-page synopsis of a much longer series of reports that the panel has issued over the past year, culminating a five-year effort by the body to summarize a vast archive of published climate research.

新報告共有175頁，是對委員會在過去一年中發佈的一系列更長報告的概要，委員會用了五年的時間對已發表的大量氣候研究文獻作了總結，新報告是這一努力的結果。

It is the fifth such report from the group since 1990, each finding greater certainty that the climate is warming and that human activities are the primary cause.

這是該機構自1990年以來的第五份報告，每份報告對氣候正在變暖、而人類活動是其主要原因的結論都比上一份報告給出更大的確定性。

"Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, and in global mean sea-level rise; and it is extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the report declared.

新報告宣佈，“人類的影響已在各個方面被檢測出來，在大氣和海洋的變暖中，在全球水循環的變化中，在冰雪量的減少中，以及在全球海平面的平均上升中。人類的影響有極大的可能是自20世紀中期以來觀測到的變暖趨勢的主要原因。”

A core finding of the new report is that climate change is no longer a distant, future threat, but is being felt all over the world already. The group cited mass die-offs of forests, including those in the American West; the melting of land ice virtually everywhere in the world; an accelerating rise of the seas that is leading to increased coastal flooding; and heat waves that have devastated crops and killed tens of thousands of people.

新報告的一個核心結論是，氣候變化已不再是一個遙遠的、未來的威脅，而是已經可以在世界各地感受到。委員會給出了大量的例子：森林的大量死亡，包括美國西部的森林；幾乎世界各個地方的陸冰都在融化；海平面的加速上升給沿海地區造成的更多洪災；以及導致作物毀壞、數萬人喪生的熱浪天氣。

The report contained the group's sharpest warning yet about the food supply, saying that climate change had already become a small drag on overall global production, and could become a far larger one if emissions continue unchecked. The reported noted that in recent years the world's food system had shown signs of instability, with sudden price increases leading to riots and, in a few cases, the collapse of governments.

報告中還有委員會對糧食供應發出的迄今最嚴厲的警告，報告說，氣候變化已在一個小的程度上拖累全球的整體作物產量，如果繼續對排放量聽之任之，則可能成爲一個大得多的問題。報告指出，近年來全球糧食系統表現出不穩定的跡象，價格的突然增長導致了騷亂，甚至在個別情況下，導致了政府的垮臺。

Another central finding of the report is that climate change poses serious risks to basic human progress, in areas such as alleviating poverty. Under the worst-case scenarios, factors like high food prices and intensified weather disasters would most likely leave poor people worse off. In fact, the report said, that has already happened in some places.

報告的另一個重要結論是，氣候變化給人類本身的進步帶來嚴重威脅，比如在消除貧困等方面。在最壞的情況下，諸如糧價過高和氣侯災害增強等因素，有很大的可能使窮人陷入更糟糕的境地。報告說，事實上，這已經在一些地方發生。

In Washington, the Obama administration welcomed the new report, with the president's science adviser, John P. Holdren, calling it "yet another wake-up call to the global community that we must act together swiftly and aggressively in order to stem climate change and avoid its worst impacts."

奧巴馬政府在華盛頓表示歡迎新報告的發佈，總統的科學顧問約翰·P·霍爾德倫(John P. Holdren)稱報告“又一次給國際社會敲響警鐘，我們必須一起採取迅速、積極的行動，以遏制氣候變化，避免其最糟糕的後果”。

The administration is pushing for new limits on emissions from American power plants, but faces stiff resistance in Congress and some states.

奧巴馬政府正在推動制定對美國發電廠排放的新限制，但面對來自國會和一些州的巨大阻力。

Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University and a principal author of the new report, said that a continuation of the political paralysis on emissions would leave society depending largely on luck.

普林斯頓大學的氣候科學家和新報告的主要作者邁克爾·奧本海默(Michael Oppenheimer)說，在排放問題上的持續政治癱瘓將讓社會在很大程度上靠運氣。

If the level of greenhouse gases were to continue rising at a rapid pace over coming decades, severe effects could be headed off only if the climate turned out to be much less sensitive to those gases than most scientists think is likely, he said.

他說，如果溫室氣體水平在今後幾十年中繼續以迅猛的速度上升，只有一種可能性能讓人們避免其嚴重的後果，那就是氣候對這些氣體的敏感度大大低於大多數科學家認爲的那樣。

"We've seen many governments delay and delay and delay on implementing comprehensive emissions cuts," Dr. Oppenheimer said. "So the need for a lot of luck looms larger and larger. Personally, I think it's a slim reed to lean on for the fate of the planet."

“我們已看到許多國家的政府在實現全面減排措施上一拖、又拖、再拖，”奧本海默說。“所以，需要很大運氣的前景日益逼近。在我看來，那是把地球的命運綁在一根很細的救命稻草上。”