演讲题目：The trillion dollar paradox

演讲简介：

全球变暖的代价非常高昂：极端天气、海平面上升、农作物减产、健康问题和工业中断都会造成经济损失。那么，解决这个问题的最佳方法是什么？ 预计全球向清洁能源转型的数万亿美元成本是否值得投资？



中英文字幕

Imagine you live in a remote village where the only source of water is delivered monthly by truck.

想象一下，你生活在一个偏远的村庄里，唯一的水源每月由卡车运送。

This, of course, costs money.

当然，这需要花钱。

But then you discover a massive water source below the village: limitless water, but currently unreachable.

但是随后你发现村庄下方有一个巨大的水源：无限的水，但目前无法到达。

To access it, you'd need to dig a well.

要访问它，你需要挖一口井。

That would cost years' worth of water trucking fees,

这需要花费数年的水运费，

but once built, you and all future generations would have unlimited water— for only the minor cost of maintaining the well.

但是一旦建成，你和所有子孙后代都将获得无限量的水，只需要维护水井的少量成本。

So, what's the best way forward?

那么，最好的前进方向是什么？

Continue trucking in water?

继续用卡车运输吗？

Or build the well?

还是建井？

Is the trillion dollar price tag that comes with transitioning the world to clean energy worth the cost of investment?

世界向清洁能源过渡所带来的万亿美元价格是否值得投资成本？

Like the trucked in water, fossil fuels aren't free.

就像装在水中的卡车一样，化石燃料也不是免费的。

There are the costs of the actual fuels, which, adjusted for inflation, haven't changed much for 140 years.

还有实际燃料的成本，经通货膨胀调整后，140年来没有太大变化。

And then there are the costs of maintaining and updating our extensive fossil fuel infrastructure.

还有维护和更新我们庞大的化石燃料基础设施的成本。

On the other hand, the wind, water, and sunlight needed to power renewables are all free and in unlimited supply,

另一方面，为可再生能源供电所需的风、水和阳光都是免费的、无限量供应的，

just like the village's newly discovered water table.

就像村庄新发现的地下水一样。

There's just the upfront cost of building infrastructure to harness them.

只有建设基础设施来利用这些资源的前期成本。

To fully transition to a green economy,

为了完全过渡到绿色经济，

we'd also need to invest in electrifying entire industries, building new renewable energy plants, deploying large-scale energy storage, and more.

我们还需要投资实现整个行业的电气化，建造新的可再生能源发电厂，部署大规模储能等。

Back in the early 2000s, most economic models predicted those costs to be completely impractical and prohibitively expensive.

早在2000年代初，大多数经济模型就预测这些成本完全不切实际，而且昂贵得令人望而却步。

For example, one model estimated that solar power would be about $157 per megawatt-hour in the 2020s,

例如，一个模型估计2020年代太阳能发电量约为每兆瓦时157美元，

which is far more expensive than coal was projected to cost.

这比煤炭的预计成本要贵得多。

But a slow revolution has been happening over the past two decades.

但过去二十年来，一场缓慢的革命正在发生。

In the early 2000, some countries like Germany and China and some tech companies decided to invest huge sums of money in solar infrastructure.

2000年初，德国、中国等一些国家以及一些科技公司决定投资巨额资金建设太阳能基础设施。

This led to more research and development, which brought the costs down far below what even the most optimistic model had predicted.

这导致了更多的研究和开发，从而使成本远远低于即使是最乐观的模型的预测。

Today, solar is 84% cheaper than that early model projected it would be— making it cheaper than power from coal in much of the world.

如今，太阳能比早期模型预测的便宜84%，这使得它比世界上大部分地区的煤炭发电便宜。

This change is so dramatic that some economists now think switching to renewable energy quickly could save trillions of dollars in the next three decades— despite the upfront cost.

这一变化是如此巨大，以至于一些经济学家现在认为，迅速转向可再生能源可以在未来30年内节省数万亿美元--尽管前期成本很高。

And of course, there's another important cost to consider.

当然，还有另一个重要的成本需要考虑。

Global warming is very, very expensive: extreme weather, rising sea levels, crop failures, health issues, and industry disruptions all cost money.

全球变暖的代价非常非常高昂：极端天气、海平面上升、农作物歉收、健康问题和行业中断都需要金钱。

Coming back to our village example, it would be as if the more water you truck in, the more that traffic degrades the road—

回到我们村庄的例子，就好像你运进来的水越多，交通就越会使道路恶化——

ruts get deeper, sides erode, maybe part of it falls away in a landslide.

车辙变得更深，侧面被侵蚀，也许部分会在山体滑坡中脱落。

Eventually the road would become unusable.

最终道路将无法使用。

Economists have also tried to predict how expensive future warming will be.

经济学家还试图预测未来变暖的代价。

The widely cited DICE model posits that the cost of climate change-induced damage rises approximately as a function of global average temperatures squared.

被广泛引用的DICE模型假定，气候变化引起的损害的成本大约是全球平均温度平方的函数。

So if temperatures rise by two degrees, costs rise by roughly a factor of four.

因此，如果气温上升2度，成本将上升约4倍。

In other words, these models assume that costs will rise smoothly and continuously.

换句话说，这些模型假设成本将平稳持续上升。

But many economists today argue that assumption is wrong,

但今天许多经济学家认为，这一假设是错误的，

because it ignores catastrophic events like the collapse of the Amazon, melting of polar and Greenland ice, and widespread crop failures, just to name a few.

因为它忽略了诸如亚马逊崩溃、极地和格陵兰冰融化以及农作物大规模歉收等灾难性事件。

Any of these would cause huge, sharp spikes in costs.

其中任何一项都会导致成本大幅飙升。

In fact, the US government keeps track of climate disasters that incur more than $1 billion in damages,

事实上，美国政府一直在追踪造成超过10亿美元损失的气候灾害，

and since 1980 they've already recorded 400 of these events.

自1980年以来，他们已经记录了400起此类事件。

The total bill is estimated to be an eye-watering $2.8 trillion— just in the US.

仅在美国，总账单估计就达到令人瞠目结舌的2.8万亿美元。

For decades, the argument in favor of transitioning to a green economy was "let's take the financial hit now; it's hard,

几十年来，支持向绿色经济转型的论点是“让我们现在就承受财务打击;这很难，

but it'll protect the world for future generations."

但它将为子孙后代保护世界。"

But that argument relied on economic modeling that underestimated the costs of a warming world and overestimated the costs of transitioning.

但这一论点依赖于经济模型，该模型低估了世界变暖的成本并高估了转型的成本。

We now know the economic outlook is different.

我们现在知道经济前景有所不同。

Making the investment to transition not only protects the world for future generations, it also saves us money in our own lifetime.

为转型进行投资不仅可以为子孙后代保护世界，还可以为我们一生节省资金。

It's just the most logical thing to do.

这是最合乎逻辑的事情。