双语外刊阅读：如何应对全球反气候浪潮

Minimise the cost and hassle that green policies impose on households

尽量减少绿色政策给家庭带来的成本和麻烦

is under way in rich democracies.

唐纳德-特朗普（Donald Trump）说，向电动汽车的转变是 "向地狱的过渡"，将摧毁 "你们美丽的生活方式"。反对绿色环保的政客远不止他一个。英国首相里希-苏纳克（Rishi Sunak）将逐步淘汰汽油车的计划推迟到数年后，他说："这是不对的......"：他说："不应该......让劳动人民付出如此高昂的代价"。10 月 8 日，德国两个大州的选民痛击了绿色执政联盟的政

就连瑞典也在去年多次下调化石燃料价格。在富裕的民主国家，对气候友好型政策的反弹正在发生。

It has many causes. Some voters deny that climate change is happening. Others accept that it is, but do not want to pay higher taxes or energy prices to tackle it. Many object to the hassle of installing new equipment. Some, especially the old, resist any kind of change. Others ask why they should make sacrifices when other countries, especially ones they dislike, are doing less.

原因有很多。一些选民否认气候变化正在发生。另一些人承认气候变化正在发生，但不愿意为应对气候变化支付更高的税收或能源价格。许多人嫌安装新设备麻烦。有些人，尤其是老年人，抵制任何形式的改变。还有人问，为什么其他国家，尤其是他们不喜欢的国家做得更少，而他们却要做出牺牲。

Under this cauldron of grievances, populist politicians have heaped lighted coals. Many exaggerate the costs of going green, embellish the details (Britain’s opposition had no plans for a meat tax, whatever Mr Sunak says) and seek to turn climate into a culture-war battleground: the metropolitan elite will grab your car and make you eat tofu! Such tactics have proved potent. Although awareness of climate change has increased, a political divide has opened. Voters on the left in Australia, Canada, Germany and Sweden are 23-44 percentage points more likely than those on the right to see it as a “major threat”; in America the gap is a stunning 63 points, according to Pew, a pollster. Such polarisation means bigger flip-flops when power changes hands: imagine France under the wind-farm-loathing Marine Le Pen. Everywhere, making climate policy less predictable makes it harder for investors to plan for the long term, as they must.

民粹主义政客们在这口怨气的大锅里堆起了火炭。许多人夸大了绿色环保的成本，美化了细节（不管苏纳克先生怎么说，英国反对党都没有征收肉类税的计划），并试图将气候问题变成文化战争的战场：大都市精英会抢走你的汽车，让你吃豆腐！事实证明，这种策略很有效。尽管人们对气候变化的认识有所提高，但政治鸿沟已经拉开。在澳大利亚、加拿大、德国和瑞典，左翼选民将气候变化视为 "重大威胁 "的可能性比右翼选民高出 23-44 个百分点；根据民意调查机构皮尤的数据，在美国，这一差距达到了惊人的 63 个百分点。这种两极分化意味着权力易手时更大的翻转：想象一下厌恶风力发电场的玛丽娜·勒庞领导下的法国。在任何地方，气候政策的可预测性降低都会使投资者更难进行长期规划，而这是他们必须做的。

What can be done? President Joe Biden’s approach has been to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at everything from batteries to smart grids, and to call it a programme to create jobs and face down China. Even voters who do not care about greenery like jobs and fear China, goes the calculation, and a future Republican president would shrink from scrapping subsidies that are popular with recipients in red and blue states alike. All true, but this approach has big drawbacks.

能做些什么？乔-拜登（Joe Biden）总统的做法是，向从电池到智能电网的所有领域投入数千亿美元，并将其称为创造就业和对抗中国的计划。即使是那些不关心绿色环保的选民，也会喜欢就业和惧怕中国，未来的共和党总统也会因为取消补贴而退缩，因为这些补贴在红州和蓝州都很受欢迎。这些都是事实，但这种方法有很大的弊端。

First, framing green energy as a matter of industrial policy and national security opens the door to protectionism, which raises the cost of green technology by shutting out some of the best suppliers. Second, a subsidy-based approach will be far more expensive than one that makes more use of carbon pricing, which encourages the reduction of emissions throughout the economy. The IMF estimates that in a typical rich country, trying to reach net zero using mostly subsidies would raise public debt by an unsustainable 45-50% of GDP by 2050. Using a well-designed mix of carbon taxes and other measures would raise debt by a more manageable 10-15% of GDP.

首先，将绿色能源作为产业政策和国家安全问题的框架为保护主义打开了大门，而保护主义会将一些最好的供应商拒之门外，从而提高绿色技术的成本。其次，以补贴为基础的方法要比更多地利用碳定价的方法昂贵得多，因为碳定价鼓励在整个经济中减少排放。国际货币基金组织（IMF）估计，在一个典型的富裕国家，如果主要使用补贴来实现净零排放，到 2050 年，公共债务将占国内生产总值的 45-50%，这是不可持续的。而采用精心设计的碳税和其他措施的组合，将使债务增加到 GDP 的 10-15%，更易于控制。

The downside of carbon taxes is that voters don’t like the sound of them, since they are, as the name implies, taxes. Governments have typically succeeded in putting a price on carbon only by stealth: using emissions-trading schemes that few voters understand. Carbon prices now cover almost a quarter of global emissions, but that is not nearly enough.

碳税的弊端在于选民听起来不喜欢，因为顾名思义，碳税就是税收。各国政府通常只能通过隐蔽的方式对碳定价：利用很少有选民了解的排放交易计划。现在，碳价格几乎覆盖了全球四分之一的排放量，但这还远远不够。

To curb carbon fast enough without generating too much resistance, climate policies should be designed to inflict as little hassle and cost on households as is practical. To reduce hassle, governments should remember that voters’ time is valuable and many green chores are dull. So, for example, instead of placing the burden on householders to install heat pumps, governments could place it on the utilities that hook up homes to the grid. Such firms could work their way across a country, installing a big heat pump in each road and connecting all the nearby houses to it—a process a bit like the roll-out of broadband over the past two decades.

为了在不引起过多抵制的情况下快速遏制碳排放，气候政策的设计应尽可能减少给家庭带来的麻烦和成本。为了减少麻烦，政府应牢记选民的时间是宝贵的，而许多环保琐事又是枯燥乏味的。因此，举例来说，政府可以将安装热泵的负担放在将家庭连接到电网的公用事业公司身上，而不是放在住户身上。这些公司可以在全国范围内开展工作，在每条道路上安装一个大型热泵，并将附近的所有房屋连接到热泵上--这个过程有点像过去二十年中宽带的推广。

To curb costs, governments should create predictable incentives to reduce emissions efficiently, meaning far more use of carbon pricing. Workers in industries that will eventually be shut down, such as coal, should be offered help, including training for new jobs. Judicious regulation can also play a role. If car firms are given a deadline to stop selling new petrol cars, they will strain to bring down the price and extend the range of electric vehicles. If deadlines are realistic, cleaner tech may already be cheaper than the dirty sort before it is compulsory.

为降低成本，政府应制定可预测的激励措施，以有效减少排放，这意味着要更多地使用碳定价。应为煤炭等最终将被关闭的行业的工人提供帮助，包括新工作的培训。明智的监管也可以发挥作用。如果给汽车公司规定了停止销售新汽油车的最后期限，他们就会努力降低电动车的价格，并扩大电动车的行驶范围。如果最后期限是现实的，那么在强制使用之前，清洁技术可能已经比肮脏技术便宜了。

Plenty of clean technologies are cheaper in the long run but have stiff upfront costs. Many voters in rich countries will need help with these. So will developing countries, where the high cost of capital still makes many green projects unaffordable. Globally, politicians who care about the climate should take the backlash seriously. That means being honest with voters about the inevitable disruption, and striving to minimise the pain.■

许多清洁技术从长远来看成本更低，但前期成本很高。富裕国家的许多选民在这方面需要帮助。发展中国家也是如此，高昂的资金成本仍然让许多绿色项目难以承受。在全球范围内，关心气候问题的政治家们应该认真对待这种反弹。这意味着对选民坦诚不可避免的破坏，并努力将痛苦降到最低。