【龙腾网】世界为气候变化导致的大规模迁移做好准备了吗？

正文翻译

I’ve had an obsession with maps ever since I first sought my bearings in Winnie the Pooh's "Hundred Aker Wood", trying to discover where was "nice for piknicks", and the locations of the characters' houses. My childhood was spent studying and drawing treasure maps, charting imaginary lands and plotting routes to faraway places I longed to visit.

自从我第一次在《小熊维尼》的“百亩森林”里判断方位，试图找到“野餐的好去处”和角色的房屋时，就迷恋上了地图。我小时候喜欢研究和绘制藏宝图、虚幻之地、通往我梦寐以求的遥远国度的路线图。

Today, my home is plastered with the maps I've collected or been given – reminders of places that are special to me. By my desk, I have a large world map, the continents distinguished from the oceans by their mosaic of colours. Each coloured patch is a country, separated from its neighbour by a neat line drawn onto this two-dimensional representation of our world.

如今，我家里贴满了收集来的或别人给我的地图，提醒我那些特殊的地方。我的书桌旁边有一幅巨大的世界地图，大洲和大洋以各种颜色区分开。在这幅二维的世界地图上，每个色块代表一个国家，并以清晰的线条与邻国分隔开。

The borders are cleanly defined, ink separating nationalities destined for different fates. For me, these lines mark exciting possibilities, with the potential for exploration and adventure, to visit foreign cultures with different foods and languages. For others, they are prison walls that limit all possibilities.

国界的划分很明确，利用油墨将各有天命的民族分隔开。对我来说，国界线标志着令人兴奋的可能性：探索与冒险，体验异国文化以及各种饮食和语言。对别人而言，国界是限制一切可能性的监狱围墙。

Borders define our fate, our life expectancy, our identity, and so much more. Yet they are an invention just like the maps I used to draw. Our borders don't exist as immutable facets of the landscape, they are not natural parts of our planet, and were invented relatively recently.

国界划分了我们的命运、预期寿命、身份等等。但正如我小时候绘制的地图，国界是一项发明。我们的国界不是一成不变的景观，不是地球上的天然存在，而是近代才出现的发明。

It can be argued, however, that most of these imaginary lines are not fit for the world of the 21st Century with its soaring population, dramatic climate change and resource scarcity. Indeed, the idea of keeping foreign people out using borders is relatively recent. States used to be far more concerned about stopping people from leaving than preventing their arrival. They needed their labour and taxes, and emigration still poses a headache for many states.

然而，可以说大多数虚构的国界线不适合21世纪的世界：人口攀升、气候急剧变化、资源稀缺。事实上，利用国界将外国人拒之门外的观念是近代出现的。在过去，国家主要关心的是阻止人们离境而不是入境。他们需要劳动力和税收，迁移出境至今让许多国家感到头疼。

There are, however, true human borders set not by politics or hereditary sovereigns, but by the physical properties of our planet. These planetary borders for our mammal species are defined by geography and climate. Humans cannot live in large numbers in Antarctica or in the Sahara Desert, for instance. As global temperatures increase, causing climate change, sea level rise and extreme weather over the coming decades, large parts of the world that are home to some of the biggest populations will become increasingly hard to live in. Coastlines, island states and major cities in the tropics will be among the hardest hit, according to predictions by climate scientists.

然而，世界上存在真正的人类国界，它们不是由政治或世袭君主划分的，而是由地球的物理特征决定的。我们这些哺乳动物的地球国界是由地貌和气候划分的，例如，人类无法在南极洲或撒哈拉沙漠里大量生存。在未来几十年里，随着全球气温升高导致气候变化、海平面上升、极端天气，世界上人口最多的大部分地区将变得越来越难以适合居住。根据气候学家的预测，沿海地区、岛国、热带地区的主要城市将遭受最严重的影响。

Unable to adapt to increasingly extreme conditions, millions – or even billions – of people will need to move.

由于无法适应日益极端的环境，数百万乃至数十亿人将需要迁移。

The most densely populated areas of the planet are clustered around the 25-26th north parallels which has traditionally been the latitude of most comfortable climate and fertile land. An estimated 279 million people are packed into this thin band of land, which cuts through countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, the United States and Mexico.

地球上人口最密集的地区集中在北纬25-26度，这里历来是气候最适宜和土地最肥沃的地区。大约2.79亿人聚居在这片狭长的土地上，横贯的国家包括印度、巴基斯坦、孟加拉国、中国、美国、墨西哥。

But the conditions here are changing. On average, climate niches – the range of conditions at which species can normally exist – around the world are moving polewards at a pace of 1.15m (3.8ft) per day, although it's far faster in some places. Adapting to the changing climate will mean chasing our own shifting niche – which for much of human history has been within the temperature range -11C to 15C (12F to 59F) – as it migrates north from the equator. True livability limits are the borders we must worry about as the world warms over this century, bringing unbearable heat, drought, floods, fires, storms, and coastal erosion that make agriculture impossible and displace people.

但这里的环境正在发生变化。大体而言，全世界的气候生态位（物种正常生存的环境范围）正在以每天1.15米（3.8英尺）的速度向极地发生偏移，而某些地区的速度更快。我们适应气候变化意味着追寻变化的生态位——在人类大部分历史时期，生态位的温度范围是-11-15摄氏度（12-59华氏度）——生态位从赤道向北方偏移。真正制约可居住性的因素是我们必须担忧的国界，因为本世纪全球变暖导致无法忍受的热浪、干旱、洪水、火灾、风暴、海岸侵蚀，致使农业荒废，人们流离失所。

Already record numbers of people are being forced to flee their homes with each passing year. In 2021, there were 89.3 million people, double the number forcibly displayed a decade ago, and in 2022 that number reached 100 million, with climate disasters displacing many more people than conflicts. Floods displaced 33 million people in Pakistan this year, while millions more in Africa have been affected by drought and the threat of famine, from the Horn of Africa to the continent's west coast.

每年都有数量空前的人们逃离家园。2021年是8930万人，相当于十年前明确公布数据的两倍。2022年达到1亿人，气候灾害比冲突导致更多的人流离失所。今年，巴基斯坦洪水导致3300万人流离失所，非洲数千万人遭受干旱和饥荒的威胁，包括非洲之角和非洲西部沿岸。

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi appealed to global leaders at the COP27 climate change conference to take bold action to tackle the humanitarian consequences of global warming. That change needs to be "transformational" according to the UNHRC. "We cannot leave millions of displaced people and their hosts to face the consequences of a changing climate alone," says Grandi.

在联合国气候变化大会第27次缔约方会议上，联合国难民署高级专员菲利波·格兰迪向全球各国领导人呼吁，采取果敢行动应对全球变暖导致的人道主义后果。联合国人权理事会表示，我们需要“逆转”这些变化。“我们不能让千百万流离失所的人们及其栖息地独自面对气候变化带来的后果”格兰迪说道。