治理环境 不应阻止穷国实现增长

Having failed to stem carbon emissions in rich countries or in rapidly industrialising ones, policy makers have focused their attention on the only remaining target: poor countries that do not emit much carbon to begin with.

在未能限制住富国或快速工业化国家的碳排放后，政策制定者已将注意力放在仅剩的一个限排目标群体上，也就是那些压根就不排放多少二氧化碳的穷国。

Legislation to cap US carbon emissions was defeated in Congress in 2009. But that did not prevent the Obama administration from imposing a cap on emissions from energy projects of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US federal agency that finances international development. Other institutions of the rich world that have decided to limit support for fossil fuel energy projects include the World Bank and the European Investment Bank.

2009年，限制美国碳排放的立法在国会以失败告终。但这并未阻止奥巴马(Obama)政府对海外私人投资公司(Overseas Private Investment Corporation)能源项目的碳排放设限。该公司是美国联邦机构，任务是为国际开发融资。富裕世界的其他机构，包括世界银行(World Bank)和欧洲投资银行(European Investment Bank)，也决定限制对化石燃料能源项目的支持。

Such decisions have painful consequences. A recent report from the non-profit Center for Global Development estimates that $10bn invested in renewable energy projects in sub-Saharan Africa could provide electricity for 30m people. If the same amount of money went into gas-fired generation, it would supply about 90m people – three times as many.

这些决定产生了令人痛苦的后果。非营利组织“全球发展中心”(Center for Global Development)近期的一份报告估计，如果用100亿美元投资于撒哈拉以南非洲的可再生能源项目，可让3000万人用上电。如果同样多的资金投资于燃气发电，则可让大约9000万人用上电，为前一数字的3倍。

In Nigeria, the UN Development Programme is spending $10m to help “improve the energy efficiency of a series of end-use equipment . . . in residential and public buildings”. As a way of lifting people out of poverty, this is fanciful at best. Nigeria is the world’s sixth-largest oil exporter, with vast reserves of natural gas as well. Yet 80m of its people lack access to electricity. Nigerians do not simply need their equipment to be more efficient; they need a copious supply of energy derived from plentiful local sources.

在尼日利亚，联合国开发计划署(UN Development Programme)正斥资1000万美元，帮助“提高住宅和公共建筑中一系列终端设备的能效”。作为一种帮助人们脱贫的方式，这最多只能算是一个奇特的主意。尼日利亚是世界第六大石油出口国，还拥有巨大的天然气储量。但该国却有8000万人用不上电。尼日利亚人根本不需要使自己的设备更为节能，而是需要源自本国丰富资源的充足能源供应。

Or consider Pakistan, where energy shortages in a rapidly growing nation of 180m have led to civil unrest – as well as rampant destruction of forests, mostly to provide firewood for cooking and heating. Western development agencies have refused to finance a project to use Pakistan’s Thar coal deposits for low-carbon natural gas production and electricity generation because of concerns over carbon emissions. Half a world away, Germany is building 10 new coal plants over the next two years.

或者来考虑一下巴基斯坦的例子。在这个拥有1.8亿人口、正快速发展的国家，能源短缺已引发民众骚乱，还导致猖獗的毁林行为，他们砍伐林木主要是为了获取木柴，用于做饭和取暖。出于对碳排放的担忧，西方开发机构拒绝为一个利用巴基斯坦塔尔煤矿藏来进行低碳天然气生产和发电的项目融资。而在地球的另一端，德国将在未来两年新建10座燃煤电厂。

These examples emerge from a larger, uglier background: a widely shared assumption that poor nations need not aspire to the sort of energy consumption seen in North America, western Europe and other wealthy regions. For example, the World Bank’s action plan for energy access fails to foresee that residents of a poor nation such as Chad might eventually aspire to use more than, say, a 10th of the energy consumption enjoyed by a middle-income nation such as Bulgaria.

这些例子的背后是一个更大、更丑陋的事实：人们普遍认为，穷国不需要追求北美、西欧和其他富裕地区那种能源消费。举例来说，世行的能源获取行动计划未能预见到：像乍得这样的穷国，其最终追求的能源消费量，可能会高于像保加利亚这样的中等收入国家能源消费量的十分之一。

Aspirations are critical here. If two lightbulbs, a fan and a radio are the goal – a standard measure of “energy access” used by the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative – then a couple of solar panels or windmills might do the job. But if the rapidly urbanising poor are to have any chance of prosperity, they need access to energy on the same scale as all modern economies.

在这里，追求是个至关重要的因素。如果两个灯泡、一台电扇和一部收音机就是追求目标（这是联合国“人人享有可持续能源”倡议(Sustainable Energy for All Initiative)所使用的衡量“能源获取”的标准指标），那么几块太阳能电池板或几台风力发电机可能就足够应付了。但如果迅速城市化的穷国想有机会实现繁荣的话，那么它们就需要获得与所有现代经济体一样多的能源。

Climate activists warn that the inhabitants of poor countries are especially vulnerable to the future climate changes that our greenhouse gas emissions will cause. Why then, do they simultaneously promote the green imperialism that helps lock in the poverty that makes these countries so vulnerable?

气候活动人士警告称，穷国居民尤其容易受到我们温室气体排放导致的未来气候变化的影响。那么，他们为什么又要推进“绿色帝国主义”(green imperialism)？正是绿色帝国主义帮助固化了贫困，让这些国家变得如此脆弱。

If, in coming decades, Africa was to achieve rapid economic growth of the kind that China has experienced, it would lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But as the rich world can attest, economic growth both requires energy consumption and leads to more of it – most of which must be provided by fossil fuels.

未来几十年，如果非洲能实现中国经历的那种快速经济增长，数亿人将因此脱贫。但正如富裕世界所能证明的那样，经济增长既需要能源消费，也会导致更多的能源消费——其中多数必须由化石燃料提供。

Last year China’s 1.4bn people were responsible for more than 10bn tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, while the 1bn people on the entire African continent emitted just a 10th of that amount. Africa’s population could exceed China’s within a decade; it could be double China’s by the middle of the century. The prospects of these billions of people depend in large part on growth in their energy production and consumption.

去年，中国14亿人口产生了逾100亿吨的碳排放，而整个非洲大陆的10亿人口的碳排放仅为中国的10%。10年内，非洲人口可能会超过中国；到本世纪中叶，非洲人口可能会变为中国的两倍。这几十亿人口的前景在很大程度上取决于其能源生产和消费的增长。

Nations such as China and Brazil have big aspirations. They have not accepted a future without fossil fuels. If we are to reduce emissions without condemning vast swaths of humanity to unending poverty, we will have to develop inexpensive, low-carbon energy technologies that are as appropriate for the US and Bulgaria as they are for Nigeria and Pakistan. Even this will involve sacrifice; it will require an investment of significant resources over many decades.

中国和巴西等国有远大的抱负。它们没有接受一个不存在化石燃料的未来。如果我们要在不让大量人口陷入无休止贫困的前提下减排，就必须开发既适合美国和保加利亚、也适合尼日利亚和巴基斯坦的低成本低碳能源技术。即使要做到这一点，也少不了要作出牺牲；它需要在数十年的时间里投入可观的资源。

Until these technologies are brought to fruition, we must work with what we have. We in the rich world have chosen economic growth over emissions reductions. It is cruelly hypocritical of us to prevent poor countries from growing, too. If we are forced to adapt to life on a planet with a less hospitable climate, the poor should at least confront the challenge with the same advantages that are enjoyed by the rich.

在这些技术结出硕果之前，我们必须利用现有技术。我们这些富裕世界的人，已选择将经济增长至于减排之上。如果我们阻止穷国也实现增长，那将是一种残忍的伪善行为。如果我们不得不适应在一个气候不那么宜人的星球上生活，那么穷国至少应在享有与富国同等优越条件的前提下来应对这一挑战。