评论
打印
And I want to talk, just really quickly, about what I mean by that.
简单解释一下。
And, to use an example to do so, let's pretend that you want to go on vacation, a vacation that's going to require transportation, food and lodging, all activities that will emit, let's say, three tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.
举个例子，比方说你要去度假，你需要乘坐交通工具、就餐和住宿，假设这些活动会向大气中排放，三吨的碳。
But you want your trip to be net-zero.
但你希望你这趟行程是“净零”的。
Well, today, you really have three options.
那么现在你有三个选择。
You could, of course, simply decide not to go, in which case your trip wouldn’t be net-zero, it would be absolute zero.
当然，你可以直接选择不去度假，这样你的行程不是“净零”，而是“绝对的零碳排放”。
Or you could decide to continue on with your trip, but in this case, pay somebody, on your behalf, to not emit three tonnes of carbon that they otherwise would have.
要么，你还是选择去度假，这种情况下，你就得付钱给别人，不排放这三吨碳就成了别人的任务。
Now, in accounting parlance, this is what's called an avoided emissions offset.
用碳足迹计算术语来说，这叫做碳抵消。
But it comes with a catch.
但它带有陷阱。
Because while you may now be able to claim your emissions to be net-zero, and thus, your trip to be net-zero, as a result of canceling out your emissions with those of someone else, you're relying on an approach that we know simply can't scale to a global net-zero outcome.
因为即使你声称通过碳抵消，做到了“净零”排放，进而使得这趟行程“净零”，你所采取的方法还是无法放大到全球“净零”目标。
And the reason that that is true is simply because carbon will still be emitted, although less, but not removed.
原因就在于还是有碳被排放到大气中，虽然量减少了，但是这些碳并没有被完全清除掉。
In the third option -- it's similar to the second -- you're going to continue to go on your trip, but in this case, you're going to pay somebody to physically remove three tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere on your behalf.
你还有一种选择——和第二种选择类似——你还是决定要去度假，不同的是，你会花钱让他人代替你去真正清除掉大气中的这3吨碳。
And this type of payment, called a carbon-removal offset, could theoretically scale from individual, to organizational, to global net-zero outcomes.
这种支付方式叫做碳移除，理论上能够实现从个人到组织机构，最终到全球的“净零”目标。
But in order to do so, it's going to have to have significant technological advances and breakthroughs to achieve the scale necessary.
但是要达到这个结果，必须有重大的科技进步和创新作支撑，从而形成足够的规模。
But the point here is really simple: it's that in today's terminology, zero is not always zero.
道理很简单：目前“零碳”并不是在任何情形下都意味着“零”。
It depends on your definition.
看你怎么定义它。
And that is a problem.
那问题就产生了。
And it's a problem that brings us to the second bug in our net-zero program: problems with measurement, and specifically, problems with the way that we do or don't measure the climate impacts of different carbon offsets.
这就要谈到“零碳”程序的另一个漏洞：测量方面的漏洞，具体来说就是，在哪种情况下我们需要测量碳抵消对气候的影响，在哪种情况下不需要。
Because not all offsets are created equal.
因为不是所有的碳抵消都“生而平等”。
The additionality of a project, the certainty with which you know that carbon will be avoided or removed, the duration of time over which your investment will remain valid.
项目是否有额外的减排效果，投资人是否对碳抵消或碳移除抱有信心，投资的有效期。
Those and a whole host of other factors -- they all influence the climate impacts of your investments.
以上这些以及其他一些因素——全部都会对你的投资产生影响。
But today, we don't do enough to measure those differences.
目前我们对这些变量的计算做的还不够好。
And we have to do better, because if we can't appropriately measure the climate impacts that those differences represent, then we'll never be able to appropriately assign the correct monetary value to any particular offset.
还要做得更好，因为如果我们不能正确计算出这些变量对气候变化的影响，我们也就无法对任一碳抵消举措做出合理的价值估算。
And if we can't get the valuation right, from both a climate and a financial perspective, then we're not going to mature the markets that we need.
如果我们不能从气候变化和金融层面做出正确估算，我们就无法建立所需的成熟市场。
And the reason for this is actually pretty simple, because it turns out to be relatively cheap to pay somebody to stop doing something.
原因实际上很简单，那就是，花钱将任务转移给他人相对来说更划算。
And so avoided emissions offsets can often be purchased for less than 10 dollars per tonne of carbon avoided.
碳抵消每吨往往花费不到10美元。
Carbon-removal offsets, on the other hand, often span prices from the high tens, to hundreds, to low thousands of dollars per tonne of carbon removed, particularly for advanced technology solutions, like direct air capture, which literally sucks carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it permanently deep under the Earth's surface.
而每移除一吨碳则会花费少则几千、几万，多则十几万美元不等，那些采用先进科技的项目更是如此，碳捕获就是这样，简单来说就是吸出大气中的碳并将它储存在地表深处。
But if each of these types of offsets counted the same for your carbon accounting, which would you choose?
但如果计算碳足迹时，以上三种碳抵消行为等值，你会做出何种选择呢？
