最新研究表示今年全球碳排放量或已下降
Talks in Paris aimed at reaching a global climate accord entered a fraught new phase yesterday, even as research showed the carbon dioxide emissions that the agreement is supposed to cut have unexpectedly stalled.
旨在达成全球气候协议的巴黎气候大会谈判昨日进入了令人担忧的新阶段，《自然气候变化》(Nature Climate Change)期刊上发表的一项研究表明，气候协议打算削减的二氧化碳排放量已意外下降。
It was already known that emissions from burning fossil fuels barely grew last year. But preliminary estimates from an International group of scientists show they may have fallen by 0.6 per cent in 2015.
我们已经知道，2014年化石燃料燃烧所产生的碳排放量几乎没有增长。但是一个由多国科学家组成的小组所做的初步估算显示，2015年化石燃料燃烧所产生的碳排放量或许降低了0.6%。
That would be a dramatic turnround from the 2-3 per cent annual emissions growth recorded since 2000 and a rare occurrence in a year when the International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to grow by about 3 per cent. Global emissions normally fall only when economic crises slow the power plants and factories that pump out carbon pollution.
相对于2000年以来录得的每年2%至3%的碳排放量增长，这种降低可谓是个重大的逆转；而且，它还发生在一个国际货币基金组织(IMF)预期全球经济将增长约3%的年份，实属罕见。通常，只有在发生了经济危机、导致发电厂和工厂碳污染减少时，全球碳排放量才会下降。
“These figures are certainly not typical,” said Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia in the UK, one of the authors of the analysis published yesterday in the Nature Climate Change journal. She said a stalling of emissions had not coincided with a year of more than 2-3 per cent economic growth since reliable records became available in the 1970s.
“这些数字当然是非典型的，”英国东盎格利亚大学(University of East Anglia)教授科琳娜勒凯雷(Corinne Le Quéré)称。勒凯雷是昨日发表的这项研究的作者之一。她表示，自上世纪70年代有可靠数据记载以来，经济增速超过2%至3%的年份从未出现过碳排放量下降。
The chief reason for the fall, the scientists said, was the slowdown in coal use in China. The country is the world’s largest carbon polluter, responsible for 27 per cent of world emissions in 2014.
科学家们表示，碳排放量下降的主要原因是中国煤炭使用量增长放缓。中国是全球最大的碳污染排放体，2014年中国占全球碳排放量的27%。
China’s emissions had been rising 6.7 per cent a year over the previous decade but this growth slowed to 1.2 per cent in 2014. The country’s emissions were expected to fall by as much as 3.9 per cent in 2015, researchers said, largely because of a fall in coal consumption in at least the first eight months of 2015.
过去十年，中国的碳排放量年增速达6.7%，但在2014年这一增速下降至1.2%。研究人员称，2015年中国碳排放量预计将减少多达3.9%，主要是由于中国的煤炭消费量至少在2015年的头8个月出现了下降。
Emissions also fell in the US and the EU, the second and third largest carbon polluters, with a 15 per cent and 10 per cent share of emissions respectively.
美国和欧盟的碳排放量也下降了。美国和欧盟分别为全球第二大和第三大碳污染排放体，占全球碳排放量的比例分别为15%和10%。
But the scientists warned it was too early to say global emissions had definitely peaked because other big emerging economies were still planning to burn large amounts of coal.
但科学家们警告称，现在说全球排放量肯定已经见顶还为时过早，因为其他大型新兴经济体仍然有计划要燃烧大量煤炭。
