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.
旨在達成全球氣候協議的巴黎氣候大會談判昨日進入了令人擔憂的新階段，《自然氣候變化》(Nature Climate Change)期刊上發表的一項研究表明，氣候協議打算削減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.
我們已經知道，2014年化石燃料燃燒所產生的碳排放量幾乎沒有增長。但是一個由多國科學家組成的小組所做的初步估算顯示，2015年化石燃料燃燒所產生的碳排放量或許降低了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.
相對於2000年以來錄得的每年2%至3%的碳排放量增長，這種降低可謂是個重大的逆轉；而且，它還發生在一個國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)預期全球經濟將增長約3%的年份，實屬罕見。通常，只有在發生了經濟危機、導致發電廠和工廠碳污染減少時，全球碳排放量纔會下降。
“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.
“這些數字當然是非典型的，”英國東盎格利亞大學(University of East Anglia)教授科琳娜勒凱雷(Corinne Le Quéré)稱。勒凱雷是昨日發表的這項研究的作者之一。她表示，自上世紀70年代有可靠數據記載以來，經濟增速超過2%至3%的年份從未出現過碳排放量下降。
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.
科學家們表示，碳排放量下降的主要原因是中國煤炭使用量增長放緩。中國是全球最大的碳污染排放體，2014年中國佔全球碳排放量的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.
過去十年，中國的碳排放量年增速達6.7%，但在2014年這一增速下降至1.2%。研究人員稱，2015年中國碳排放量預計將減少多達3.9%，主要是由於中國的煤炭消費量至少在2015年的頭8個月出現了下降。
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.
美國和歐盟的碳排放量也下降了。美國和歐盟分別爲全球第二大和第三大碳污染排放體，佔全球碳排放量的比例分別爲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.
但科學家們警告稱，現在說全球排放量肯定已經見頂還爲時過早，因爲其他大型新興經濟體仍然有計劃要燃燒大量煤炭。
