【英语每日听读（21）】发展与减排｜词汇梳理（双语注释）｜原版音频｜双语对...

Economic growth no longer

requires rising emissions

Now this decoupling must accelerate

Nov 10th 2022

Good news on the fight against climate change can be hard to find. Targets are missed,promises are broken and the planet gets hotter. But as worthies from across the world meet in Sharm el-Sheikh for the latest UN conference to pledge to do more to tackle this enormous problem, there is at least one reason for optimism. A large and growing group of mostly rich countries has severed the link between economic growth and rising emissions of greenhouse gases. 

我们可能很难看到关于气候变化的好消息。许多目标失败了，许多承诺被打破，而地球也变得越来越热。但是，当世界各地的知名人士在沙姆沙伊赫出席最新的联合国会议并承诺为解决这一巨大问题做出更多努力时，至少有一个消息可以让我们感到乐观：已经有许多发达国家实现了经济增长和温室气体排放之间的“脱钩”，而这一数字仍在增长。 

For the three centuries or so since the fossil-fuel age began in earnest, living standards and emissions have risen hand in hand. Coal, then oil and natural gas, all brought prosperity while also raising global temperatures. This link has led some environmentalists and scientists to argue that only a programme of “degrowth”—reducing the pace of improvements in overall prosperity, or reversing them altogether—would avoid the worst effects of climate change.

自化石燃料时代真正开始以来的三个多世纪里，人类生活水平和碳排放量一直 在同步提高。 煤炭，石油和天然气都在带来繁荣的同时导致了全球变暖。这种 联系让一些环保主义者和科学家认为，只有推行“去增长”的方案（减缓整体经济发展速度，甚至使经济倒退）才能避免气候变化带来的最坏影响。

 Yet over the past decade a growing number of countries—33 by The Economist ’ s count, home to over 1bn people—have managed to increase their gdp while reducing their emissions. After a peak in 2007 America reduced its territorial emissions from 6.13bn tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent to 5.26bn before the pandemic. And that is not because Americans are simply importing their toys and electronics from dirtier places. Strikingly, consumption emissions, which include a measure of the carbon embedded in imports, have fallen by 15% over the same period. 

然而，根据《经济学人》的统计，在过去的十年中，越来越多的国家（合计人口数量超过10亿的33个国家）已经成功地在提高GDP的同时减少他们的碳排放。美国在2007年达到碳排放顶峰后，将其国内碳排放量从61.3亿吨二氧化碳当量减少到疫情前的52.6亿吨。而这并不是因为美国人从更脏的地方进口他们的玩具和电子产品。令人惊奇的是，美国消费碳排放（包含进口产品中的碳排放折算量）也在同一时期下降了15%。

 Decoupling is largely a result of two big shifts. One is the changing structure of economies. As countries became richer they expanded their service sectors, which use less energy than manufacturing. In Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, four-fifths of output is now generated by accountants, shop assistants and other service workers. Even in Germany, famed for its industrial prowess, manufacturing’s share of GDP is falling. That has reduced the energy intensity of growth. 

（ 经济增长和碳排放） “脱钩”在很大程度上得益于两个大转变。 一个是经济结构的变化。 随着国家变得更加富有，他们扩张了服务业，而服务业部门比制造业所需的能源更少。在（第一次）工业革命的发源地英国，现在有五分之四的经济产出是由会计、店员和其他服务业从业人员创造的。即使在以工业实力闻名的德国，制造业在国内生产总值中的所占比重也在下降。经济结构的变化降低了实现单位经济增长所需的能源量。

 Second, imports are getting greener. In the decade after the financial crisis, China’s export sector decarbonised faster than the rest of its economy. This has helped reduce the total carbon footprint of rich countries. Furthermore, manufacturing is shifting out of China, which is more polluting, per dollar of GDP, than India or Indonesia. 

第二， 进口商品越来越绿色。 

（ 2008 年） 金融危机后的十年里，中国出口部 门减少碳排放的速度比其他经济部门快。这有助于减少富裕国家的总体碳足迹。此外，制造业正在从中国转移出去，而根据国民生产总值计算，中国制造业的污染程度要比印度或印度尼西亚要高。

This decoupling is unambiguously good news. But, with the link unbroken in many poorer countries, it has not been enough to reduce the pace of increase in global emissions. The task is therefore to speed up decoupling. That will not only demonstrate that tackling climate change and improving living standards can go together; it will also allow poorer parts of the world to use more of the remaining global carbon budget to get richer. 

这种“脱钩”明显是好消息。但是，由于许多较贫穷国家并未实现“脱钩”，部分富裕国家的“脱钩”还不足以减缓全球碳排放的增长速度。因此，我们的任务是加快“脱钩”速度。这不仅可以向大家证明应对气候变化和提高生活水平可以同步进行，还可以使世界上较贫穷的地区能够利用更多剩余的“全球碳 预算”来发展当地经济。

 Hearteningly, there are reasons to think such an acceleration is possible. So far, decoupling has been achieved largely by reducing the energy needed per unit of output. But there are big gains to be had from making energy greener in the first place. Thanks to investment in renewables and greater electrification, such gains could soon be realised. That might even boost long-term growth:an economy that must scrimp and save to conserve energy is less dynamic than one in which power is green, abundant and cheap. 

令人振奋的是，我们有理由认为这种提速是可能的。到目前为止，“脱钩”主要是通过减少单位产出所需能源来实现的。但假如我们从一开始就使用更加绿色的能源的话，我们就能获得巨大收益。得益于对可再生能源的投资和更广泛 的电气化进程，我们也许很快就可以获取这种收益。这甚至可能促进长期经济增长，因为一个必须靠节衣缩食以节约能源的经济体，其活力不如一个拥有绿色、丰富和廉价能源的经济体。 

Some environmentalists may fret that celebrating such good news can have a perverse effect, by breeding complacency or making fighting climate change seem less urgent. In fact, the lack of a trade-off between improving living standards and tackling climate change should be a reason to go faster still. It means one less excuse for timidity in Sharm el-Sheikh. 

一些环保主义者也许担心为这种好消息而庆祝可能会产生反作用， 因为这样会滋生自满情绪，或者使应对气候变化这一任务看起来不那么紧迫。事实上，如果我们不需要在提高生活水平和应对气候变化两者之间纠结的话，我们可以加快我们前进的步伐。这也意味着在沙姆沙伊赫的代表们可以大展拳脚。