谷歌首次披露碳排放量高达150万吨相当于整个联合国。

译者 云来如此

Google's carbon footprint is on a par with the United Nations, the internet giant revealed on Thursday as it published its energy usage for the first time.

谷歌的碳排放量相当于整个联合国，这个互联网巨头在星期二首次公布了它的能源消耗情况。

Google says that it emits 1.5m tonnes of carbon annually but claims that its data centres consume 50% less energy than the industry average. The emissions are slightly higher than the country of Laos in south-east Asia and equivalent to the UN's operational footprint.

谷歌发布消息称虽然它每年排放达150万吨的二氧化碳，但跟行业平均水平相比，数据中心仍然节省了50%的能量。谷歌的排放量比东南亚国家老挝稍微高一点，与联合国的所有运行部门的碳排放量相等。

The company said that many of its "cloud-based" services for businesses, such as its popular Gmail system, can be up to 80 times less polluting than traditional alternatives, which require companies to operate their own, potentially more inefficient servers.

公司宣称，很多“云计算”商业服务，比如众所周知的Gmail系统，比传统的类似项目——需要公司自己运行的，很大程度上无效率的——最高可少排放80%的二氧化碳。

Google has made strides in reducing the energy use of its products and increasing the proportion of electricity it purchases from renewable sources. But the company said in a conference call that its total carbon footprint has continued to climb, reflecting a growing number of users and society's increasing reliance on online services. Google declined to reveal how much its energy use had risen since the previous year, but said that the figures would be released in the future via the Carbon Disclosure Project.

谷歌在减少能耗方面已经做出了巨大的进步，同时提高了购买新能源的比例。但是公司在一次电视会议中说排放量依然在不断攀升，这表明谷歌用户数量不断增大，整个社会也越来越依赖互联网。谷歌拒绝进一步公布与前几年相比碳排放量的增加额，但会在接下来的碳排放公开项目中公布数据。

Google's energy use became the subject of scrutiny in 2009 following the publication of a story claiming that each search carried out on the website had a carbon footprint of 7g of CO2 – around half as much as boiling the water for a cup of coffee. Google's response was to claim that this figure included many factors it was not responsible for, such as the power consumed by the user's computer, and that its share of the footprint was only 0.2g of CO2 per search.

在2009年出版的一则消息称每次网站搜索可以带来7克的碳排放量——几乎是等同于煮半杯咖啡，谷歌的能耗情况就作为一项审查项目。谷歌回应说这个数据包含了很多其他因素，比如用户电脑消耗的能量，在一次搜索过程中只有0.2克CO2来自于谷歌。

Today's announcement repeats the 0.2g figure and gives equivalent numbers for other Google services, such as YouTube (1g of CO2 for each 10 minutes of viewing) and Gmail (1.2kg of CO2 per year for the typical user). The company calculates that, in total, the typical Google user creates 1.46kg of CO2 by consuming its various services – the equivalent of filling a deep bath or buying an imported bottle of wine. It also claims that producing and shipping a single DVD uses as much energy as watching YouTube non-stop for three days.

如今的报道保留了0.2克这个数据，同样将这个标准适用于谷歌提供的其他服务，比如youtube（每十分钟浏览带来1克的CO2排放）以及Gmail（标准用户每年排放1.2克CO2）。公司计算出，总体来说，一个标准的谷歌用户带来1.46千克的CO2排放——大概相当于一次潜水或者购买一瓶进口的葡萄酒。它同时宣称生产以及运输一张DVD消耗的能量相当于观看整整3天的youtube。

Last year, Facebook, came under pressure in relation to energy use following its decision to site its new data centre in Oregon and to power it with electricity largely generated from coal. However, Facebook argued that the cool climate in Oregon helped it minimise energy consumption by reducing the need for cooling.

去年，脸谱网迫于能耗问题不得不作出将数据中心转移到俄勒冈州，使用燃煤发电来供应机器运转。额按而，脸谱网声明俄勒冈州寒冷的气候将有助于减少用于冷却的能耗。

As online activity has increased, the internet has become an increasingly significant consumer of energy, with a carbon footprint estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of tonnes – equivalent to a large industrialised country.

随着网络活动日益频繁，因特网已经成为一个不可忽视的能耗大户，每年向大气中排放数百万吨二氧化碳——大概相当于一个工业化大国的排放量。

Google estimates that data centres account for around 1% of the world's electricity use, and that Google itself consumes around 1% of that amount.

谷歌估算出数据中心大约消耗了世界上1%的电能，而谷歌自身仅仅占到其中的1%。

Almost one-third of the company's electricity comes from renewable sources – a figure that is continuing to rise. The company offsets the emissions generated by the remainder of its electricity supply, along with those from its offices and transport.

谷歌公司几乎四分之一的电能来自于新能源——而且还在继续增加。公司将行政部门和交通部门的剩余电能用来抵消其他部门的碳排放。

  

Gary Cook, senior IT policy analyst for Greenpeace International, which has campaigned to make the IT sector more accountable for its energy use, said: "We've seen lots of leadership from Google on sustainability but not in terms of transparency. It's good to see them finally put their footprint data on the table, which hopefully should start a more robust debate on the energy use of online services. We need to see others doing the same."

  

Gary Cook,绿色和平国际的高级信息官员，致力于推进IT部门对能源消耗负起责任，他说：“我们已经跟许多谷歌的高管进行了联系但是没有公开。我们很高兴能看到谷歌将他们的碳排放量公布于世，这将会开启网络服务部门能源消耗的热烈的争论。我们期待其他网络服务公司也能够如此”