【原文】The covid-19 crisis reveals how hard it will be to tackle climate change—and creates a unique chance to do so
Following the pandemic is like watching the climate crisis with your finger jammed on the fast-forward button. Neither the virus nor greenhouse gases care much for borders, making
both scourges global. Both put the poor and vulnerable at greater risk than wealthy elites and demand government action on a scale hardly ever seen in peacetime. And with China’s leadership focused only on its own advantage and America’s as scornful of the World Health Organisation as it is of the Paris climate agree- ment, neither calamity is getting the co-ordinated international response it deserves.
The two crises do not just resemble each other. They interact. Shutting down swathes of the economy has led to huge cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. In the first week of April, daily emis- sions worldwide were 17% below what they were last year. The International Energy Agency expects global industrial green- house-gas emissions to be about 8% lower in 2020 than they were in 2019, the largest annual drop since the second world war.
That drop reveals a crucial truth about the climate crisis. It is much too large to be solved by the abandonment of planes, trains and automobiles. Even if people endure huge changes in how they lead their lives, this sad experiment has shown, the world would still have more than 90% of the necessary decarbonisa- tion left to do to get on track for the Paris agreement’s most ambi- tious goal, of a climate only 1.5°C warmer than it
was before the Industrial Revolution.
But as we explain this week (see Briefing) the pandemic both reveals the size of the challenge ahead and also creates a unique chance to enact government policies that steer the economy away from carbon at a lower financial, social and political cost than might otherwise have been the case. Rock-bottom energy prices make
it easier to cut subsidies for fossil fuels and to introduce a tax on carbon. The revenues from that tax over the next decade can help repair battered government finances. The businesses at the heart of the fossil-fuel economy—oil and gas firms, steel producers, carmakers—are already going through the agony of shrinking their long-term capacity and employment. Getting economies in medically induced comas back on their feet is a circumstance tailor-made for investment in climate-friendly infrastructure that boosts growth and creates new jobs. Low interest rates make the bill smaller than ever.
Take carbon-pricing first. Long cherished by economists (and The Economist), such schemes use the power of the market to in- centivise consumers and firms to cut their emissions, thus en- suring that the shift from carbon happens in the most efficient way possible. The timing is particularly propitious because such prices have the most immediate effects when they tip the bal- ance between two already available technologies. In the past it was possible to argue that, although prices might entrench an advantage for cleaner gas over dirtier coal, renewable technol- ogies were too immature to benefit. But over the past decade the costs of wind and solar power have tumbled. A relatively small push from a carbon price could give renewables a decisive ad- vantage—one which would become permanent as wider deploy-
ment made them cheaper still. There may never have been a time when carbon prices could achieve so much so quickly.
Carbon prices are not as popular with politicians as they are with economists, which is why too few of them exist. But even before covid-19 there were hints their time was coming. Europe is planning an expansion of its carbon-pricing scheme, the larg- est in the world; China is instituting a brand new one. Joe Biden, who backed carbon prices when he was vice-president, will do so again in the coming election campaign—and at least some on the right will agree with that. The proceeds from a carbon tax could raise over 1% of gdp early on and would then taper away over sev- eral decades. This money could either be paid as a dividend to the public or, as is more likely now, help lower government debts, which are already forecast to reach an average of 122% of gdp in the rich world this year, and will rise further if green investments are debt-financed.
Carbon pricing is only part of the big-bang response now pos- sible. By itself, it is unlikely to create a network of electric-vehi- cle charging-points, more nuclear power plants to underpin the cheap but intermittent electricity supplied by renewables, pro- grammes to retrofit inefficient buildings and to develop technol- ogies aimed at reducing emissions that cannot simply be electri- fied away, such as those from large aircraft and some farms. In
these areas subsidies and direct government in- vestment are needed to ensure that tomorrow’s consumers and firms have the technologies which carbon prices will encourage.
Some governments have put their efforts into greening their covid-19 bail-outs. Air France has been told either to scrap domestic routes that compete with high-speed trains, powered by nuclear electricity, or to forfeit taxpayer as-
sistance. But dirigisme disguised as a helping hand could have dangerous consequences: better to focus on insisting that gov- ernments must not skew their bail-outs towards fossil fuels. In other countries the risk is of climate-damaging policies. Ameri- ca has been relaxing its environmental rules further during the pandemic. China—whose stimulus for heavy industry sent glo- bal emissions soaring after the global financial crisis—contin- ues to build new coal plants (see China section).
Carpe covid
The covid-19 pause is not inherently climate-friendly. Countries must make it so. Their aim should be to show by 2021, when they gather to take stock of progress made since the Paris agreement and commit themselves to raising their game, that the pandemic has been a catalyst for a breakthrough on the environment.
Covid-19 has demonstrated that the foundations of prosperity are precarious. Disasters long talked about, and long ignored, can come upon you with no warning, turning life inside out and shaking all that seemed stable. The harm from climate change will be slower than the pandemic but more massive and longer- lasting. If there is a moment for leaders to show bravery in head- ing off that disaster, this is it. They will never have a more atten- tive audience.
【积累】
with your finger jammed on the fast-forward button 你的手指按在快进键上了
swathes of the economy 一系列，一连串
rock-bottom adj.底层的
going through the agony of doing sth.
The 【proceeds 收益】 from a carbon tax could raise over 1% of GDP early on and would then 【taper away 逐渐减少】 over several decades.
battered adj. 破旧的
propitious adj.合适的
tip the balance 打破平衡，扭转局势
take stock of 观察，估量
【总结】新型冠状病毒和温室效应不分国界。他们没有得到国际社会应有的回应：中国关注于自身的优势，美国对WHO和巴黎协定都不屑一顾。
两个人类所面对的危机是紧密相连的，经济停滞带来的是温室气体的骤减。即使如此，人类要需要做高达90%的去碳化才能达到巴黎协定的宏伟目标。冠状病毒揭示了减轻温室效应的任务之艰巨，同时，也给了政府低金融，社会，政治成本去制定政策。现在是环境基建行业成长的大好时机，低利率借贷而且可以挽救失业率，促进经济增长。
现在也是给碳定价的大好时机。在可再生能源例如风能和太阳能技术逐渐成熟时，这项政策将会促进顾客和公司去减少碳排放量，让碳在最有效率的场合下出场。
这项政策没有被大力推行的原因时只有经济学家们喜欢，政治家们对此却没什么热情。但是在疫情到来之际，我们都知道，时机已经成熟了。碳税在前几年将可以给国家带来1%的GDP增长，也能招引来更多的绿色投资，可以帮助困于债务危机的政府们。
新型冠状病毒本质上对环境没什么益处，国家必须采取一些措施，才能使他们在2021年聚集在一起估量巴黎协定后的进步时有话可说。这场疫情是环境变好的催化剂，给碳赋税则是一剂猛药。