When I first started learning about climate change 15 years ago, I came to three conclusions. First, avoiding a climate disaster would be the hardest challenge people had ever faced. Second, the only way to do it was to invest aggressively in clean-energy innovation and deployment. And third, we needed to get going.
15年前，我第一次开始了解到气候变化之后，得出了三个结论。第一，避免气候灾难将是人类有史以来最艰巨的一项挑战。第二，实现这一目标的唯一途径是大力投资于清洁能源的创新和应用。第三，我们需要立即行动起来。
Since then, an influx of private and public investment has accelerated innovation faster than I dared hope. This progress makes me optimistic about the future.
自那时起，私人和公共投资的涌入加速了创新，其速度之快超出了我的想象。这一进展使我对未来感到乐观。
But I am also realistic about the present. The world still needs to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from 51 billion tons to zero, but global emissions continue to increase every year. If you follow the annual IPCC reports, you’ve watched as the scenarios for limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius become increasingly remote. And some of the clean technologies we need are still very far from becoming practical, cost-effective solutions we can deploy at scale.
但我也很现实地看待当前的情况。世界仍需将温室气体年排放量从510亿吨减少到零，然而目前全球排放量仍在逐年增加。如果你关注联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会的年度报告，你会看到，实现将全球气温上升控制在1.5甚至2摄氏度的愿景越来越渺茫。我们需要的一些清洁技术还无法兼具性价比与实用性，还远远不能成为大规模应用的解决方案。
In the past decade, we finally got going. Over the next three, we need to go much further, much faster. I still believe we can avoid a climate disaster—if we devote the next generation to mobilizing the largest crisis response in human history.
过去十年，我们终于启动了净零排放的征程。未来三年，我们需要走得更快、更远。我仍然相信我们可以避免气候灾难——如果我们让下一代投入到人类历史上规模最大的危机应对行动中去。
Why the energy transition is so hard
To understand what it will take to get to zero, we need to start by asking where the 51 billion tons of emissions come from. Unfortunately, the answer is everything and everywhere.
为了解实现净零排放所需的条件，我们首先需要一探究竟，这510亿吨的排放量从何而来。很不幸，答案是来自各行各业、世界各地。
Everything: Virtually every human activity produces greenhouse gas emissions. People automatically think of electricity, where there’s a path to zero because wind and solar are now cheaper than fossil fuels. But electricity accounts for only 26 percent of global emissions. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries have made it possible to see a net-zero future for car travel. But cars account for less than half of the transportation sector’s 16 percent of emissions. Lithium-ion batteries don’t do much about the emissions from long-distance travel in airplanes, cargo ships, and heavy-duty trucks.
各行各业：几乎所有人类活动都会产生温室气体排放。提到有望实现净零排放的行业，人们会不由自主地想到电力，因为现在风能和太阳能发电已经比化石燃料更便宜。但发电只占全球总排放量的26%。同样地，锂离子电池也让人们看到汽车出行达到净零排放的希望。但实际上，交通行业总排放量占比16%，其中汽车的排放量只占不到一半。锂离子电池对减少飞机、货船和重型卡车的长途运输排放并没有太大作用。
Agriculture and buildings account for 21 and 7 percent of emissions, respectively. The sector with the most emissions, 30 percent of the total, is manufacturing—making the things that modern life depends on, like cement, plastic, and steel. There are currently no cement plants in the world, and exactly one steel plant, that don’t produce CO2.
农业和建筑业分别占总排放量的21%和7%。排放量最大的行业是制造业，占总量的30%——这里几乎涵盖了人类现代生活的基石，如水泥、塑料和钢铁。目前，世界上没有任何一家水泥厂、且仅仅有一家钢铁厂不产生二氧化碳。
So, if you are reading this over lunch on a plastic device in your climate-controlled concrete-and-steel office building that you took a bus to get to, you begin to see how more or less every aspect of our lives contributes to the problem.
因此，如果你现在在吃午餐，身处需乘坐公共汽车抵达的、空调恒温的钢筋混凝土办公楼里，用着塑料餐具读到这篇文章，你就会开始明白，我们生活的方方面面都或多或少地导致了温室气体排放问题。
Everywhere: More than 70 countries have committed to reaching net zero, including big polluters like the United States and the European Union. Even if the US and Europe get there, however, we won’t have solved the problem. Three-quarters of the global population lives in emerging economies like Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, and although historically they played a very small role in causing climate change, they are now responsible for two-thirds of total greenhouse-gas emissions. So solutions can’t be dependent on unique conditions in a single country or region. They have to work in all countries, or the temperature will continue to rise.
世界各地：已有超过70个国家承诺实现净零排放，包括美国和欧盟国家等污染大国。然而，即使美国和欧洲达到了净零目标，我们也没有解决问题。全球四分之三的人口生活在巴西、中国、印度和南非等新兴经济体之中。尽管在历史上，这些国家对气候变化造成的影响非常小，但现在它们的温室气体排放量却占到了总排放量的三分之二。因此，解决方案不能只满足某一国家或地区的独特条件，而是必须要在所有国家发挥作用，否则全球气温将继续上升。
Thinking globally instead of nationally reveals why we can’t solve climate change simply by using less energy. Low- and middle-income countries are building aggressively to achieve the standard of living their people aspire to—and they should be. Many countries in Europe and North America filled the atmosphere with carbon to achieve prosperity, and it is both unrealistic and unfair to expect everyone else to forgo a more comfortable life because that carbon turned out to change the climate.
从全球而非国家的角度思考，揭示了为什么我们不能仅仅通过减少能源的使用来解决气候变化问题。中低收入国家正在积极投入经济建设，以实现其人民渴望的生活水平——他们应该这样做。欧洲和北美的许多国家为了自身的繁荣发展而将碳排放到大气中，他们排放的碳最终改变了气候，却转而期待其他国家的人因此而放弃更舒适的生活，这既不现实也不公平。
The solution to the everything, everywhere challenge is three-fold. First, we have to invent clean technologies to replace every emissions-intensive process we use today: a new way to make steel, to power airplanes, to fertilize fields.
面对这一一存在于各行各业、世界各地的挑战，解决方案可分为三个方面。首先，我们必须加速清洁技术创新，以此来取代我们目前使用的每一项排放密集型生产流程：无论是炼钢、为飞机供能、还是为农田施肥都需要新方法。
Second, we have to drive the cost of new clean technologies down so they can compete, not just in rich countries but in all countries. I call the difference in price between any current technology and the clean alternative the “Green Premium,” and it’s the key to how I see the world avoiding a climate disaster. Green Premiums need to be near, at, or below zero. As long as clean cement costs twice as much as traditionally manufactured cement, for example, the vast majority of buyers simply won’t choose it.
其次，我们必须降低新型清洁技术的成本，使它们不仅在富裕国家，而是在所有国家都具有竞争力。我把任何现有技术和清洁替代能源之间的价格差异称作“绿色溢价”，我认为这是世界避免气候灾难的关键。绿色溢价需要接近、等于或小于零。举例来说，如果清洁水泥的价格是传统水泥价格的两倍，绝大多数买家就不会选择它。
The third part of the solution is deploying these cost-competitive technologies, fast. We have to replace every single piece of infrastructure dedicated to doing things the old way with infrastructure dedicated to doing things in a new way—and that doesn’t happen instantly, especially considering the mind-boggling scale of the job.
第三点解决方案是快速部署那些具有成本竞争力的技术。我们必须用新技术基础设施取代每一个使用旧方式的基础设施——这不会立即奏效，特别是考虑到这一工作的惊人规模。
For example, there are currently 2,412 coal-fired power plants in the world, and that number is still going up. Every single one of those plants will have to be replaced. Or zoom in and consider just a single oil field, Hebron-Ben Nevis off the coast of Newfoundland. It will operate continuously for 30 years, employ hundreds of people, and cost $7 billion—and all that time, labor, and money will produce enough oil to last the world just eight days.
例如，目前世界上有2412个燃煤发电厂，而这个数字还在增加。所有这些工厂都不得不被取代。或者再具体一点，就说一个油田——纽芬兰海岸的希伯伦-本尼维斯油田，它连续运行30年，雇佣数百人，耗资70亿美元。这么多人力、财力和时间成本所生产的石油却只够全世界用8天。
We use so much energy, and we have invested so much in the machinery to generate it. Now, in the span of about 30 years, we have to decommission it all and start over again with clean technologies. I have more confidence in markets than many other people, but even I don’t think the market by itself can press reset on an entire economy in just a few decades. We need a plan to speed the process up.
我们使用了如此多的能源，也在生产能源的机器上投入了如此多的资金。而现在，在大约30年的时间里，我们必须让这些传统能源全部退役，利用清洁技术重新开始。与很多其他人相比，我对市场更有信心。但即使是我，也不认为市场自身能够在短短几十年内对整个经济进行重置。我们需要一个计划来加速这个进程。
How the world is doing so far
A lot has changed since the COP 21 meeting in 2015 in Paris, where 22 governments launched an initiative called Mission Innovation. Since then, public funding for climate-related research and development (R&D) has increased by almost a third.
自2015年在巴黎举行的第21届联合国气候变化大会以来，情况发生了很大变化。在那次会议上，22个国家政府联合发起了一项名为“创新使命”的倡议。从那时起，用于气候相关研究与开发的公共资金已经增加了近三分之一。
The private sector is investing in climate more than ever
At that same event, I was part of a group of investors that launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate-focused venture capital fund that now has more than 100 clean-energy companies in its portfolio. Meanwhile, other venture funds are making more investments in the sector. In the past two years, VCs have put approximately $70 billion into more than 1,300 clean-energy start-ups.
在巴黎气候大会上，我是发起突破能源基金的投资者小组的一员，这是一支专注于气候领域的风险投资基金，现在其投资组合中有超过100家清洁能源公司。与此同时，其他风险基金正在加大对该领域的投资。在过去的两年里，风险投资已经向1300多家清洁能源初创企业投入了约700亿美元。
As a result of this activity, R&D pipelines are finally filling up. Take long-duration energy storage. Many renewable sources of energy—specifically solar and wind—are intermittent: not always on. But we still need to be able to generate power on demand, so we need to store it when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and use it even when they aren’t.
归功于这次气候大会，研发管线终于开始运行。以长时能源储存为例。许多可再生能源（特别是太阳能和风能）都是间歇性的：并不是随叫随到。但我们仍然需要能够按需发电，因此我们需要阳光明媚、有风的时候储存电能，以供间歇时段使用。
BEV is funding multiple companies developing different approaches to long-duration energy storage, because we don’t know which one will work best. For example, Ramya Swaminathan’s start-up, Malta, converts electricity into heat, which is stored in molten salts, and cold, which is stored in an anti-freeze solution—and converts them back into electricity when needed. Form Energy, founded by Mateo Jaramillo, stores electricity in what is known as an iron-air battery that converts iron into rust and then reverses the process on demand. The pipeline in other key sectors is similarly diverse.
突破能源基金正在资助多家公司开发不同的长时储能方法，我们还不知道哪种方法会最有效。例如，拉米亚·斯瓦米纳坦的初创公司Malta将电能转化为热能（储存在熔盐中）和冷能（储存在防冻液中），并在需要时将其转化为电能。马特奥·哈拉米略创立的Form Energy公司将电能储存在其所谓的“铁-空气电池”中，这种电池能将铁转化为铁锈，然后在需要时逆转这一过程。其他关键领域的研发管线也同样多样化。
Established companies have also recently started shifting investment and expertise dramatically to meet net-zero commitments. In 2016, only 21 companies had issued climate targets. Now, that number is 3,671. Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program is partnering with airlines, carmakers, and steel companies committed to deploying clean technologies and banks and investment funds interested in financing them.
大企业最近也开始大幅转移投资和专业技术，以实现其净零排放的承诺。2016年，只有21家公司发布了气候目标。现在，这个数字是3671家。突破能源催化剂项目正在与那些致力于应用清洁技术的航空公司、汽车制造商和钢铁公司以及有兴趣为其提供融资的银行和投资基金合作。
The public sector is stepping up with impactful policies
One reason for this burst of innovation is public policies that have grown more ambitious in recent years.
创新爆发式增长的原因之一是近年来公共政策变得越来越雄心勃勃。
In the past 12 months, the U.S. Congress has passed and President Biden has signed three climate-relevant laws: the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act. Together, they provide more than $500 billion in tax credits, loan guarantees, and other investments in the energy transition. More importantly, they will spur hundreds of new clean energy projects and mobilize trillions more in private investment, including—crucially—in what are known as demonstration projects.
在过去的12个月里，美国国会通过并由拜登总统签署了三部与气候相关的法律：《降低通货膨胀法案》（《通胀削减法案》）、《两党基础设施法》和《芯片和科学法案》。这些法案合计提供了超过5000亿美元的税收减免、贷款担保和其他能源转型的投资。更重要的是，它们将刺激数以百计的新型清洁能源项目，并动员数以万亿计的私人投资，包括（特别是）所谓的示范项目。
Demonstration is the key to getting the Green Premiums down. The only way to optimize new technology is to take it out of the lab, build it out in the real world, and continuously improve it. This legislation not only provides funding for doing so but also creates an Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to manage the process going forward.
创新示范是降低绿色溢价的关键。优化新技术的唯一方法是将其带出实验室，在现实世界中实施，并不断地加以改进。这项立法不仅为此提供了资金，而且还创立了一个清洁能源示范办公室来管理未来进程。
For its part, the European Union enshrined net zero by 2050 into law in 2021. In the same year, it stepped up its 2030 target from a 40 percent to a 55 percent reduction (compared to the 1990 level). The specific plan to reach those targets is still making its way through the legislative process.
欧盟则在2021年将“到2050年实现净零排放”写入了法律。同年，欧盟将2030年的减排目标从40%提高到55%（与1990年的水平相比）。实现这些目标的具体计划仍在立法程序的审核之中。
Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis it caused are putting pressure on the growing climate consensus on the continent. Some countries have recently invested in new fossil fuel projects, which only trades one major problem for another. Ultimately, net zero and energy security are two sides of the same coin. Clean-energy innovations are the only way to achieve either one.
不幸的是，俄乌冲突及其引发的能源危机正在给欧洲大陆日益增长的气候共识带来压力。一些国家最近投资了新的化石燃料项目，但这只是权宜之计。归根结底，净零排放和能源安全是一个硬币的两面，清洁能源创新是同时实现这两个目标的唯一途径。
What the world needs to do now
Humanity has never had all these raw materials in front of us before: the investment, the policy, the pipeline of innovations, the overall public awareness that climate change is a priority. In recent polling, more people around the world see climate as a major threat than any other issue. And more individuals than ever are taking productive steps to reduce their own carbon footprints, which when viewed collectively sends a powerful signal to business and government leaders that more must be done. But even with all these tools and momentum, we still have to fashion them into a comprehensive solution.
人类从来没有一下子拥有过这么多资源：投资、政策、创新管线、以及公众对于“气候变化确实是当务之急”的整体意识。在最近的民意调查中，世界上有更多的人认为气候变化才是主要威胁，而不是任何其他问题。而且，越来越多的个人正在采取有效措施减少自己的碳足迹，这一集体现象向企业和政府领导人发出了一个强有力的信号——必须采取更多行动。但是，即使有了所有这些工具和动力，我们仍然需要将其转化为一个全面的解决方案。
That means three things: more research, development, and demonstration; developing a fair, workable process for scaling up; and helping people adapt to the climate change that is going to happen no matter what we do now.
这意味着三件事：更多的研究、开发和示范；制定一个公平、可行的流程来扩大规模；以及帮助人们适应气候变化，因为它已无法避免，无论我们现在做什么。
Research, development, and demonstration: There are still many critical clean technologies that aren’t anywhere near cheap enough to compete. We need sustainable liquid fuels for long-haul transportation; affordable ways to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere; additional sources of renewable energy to keep up with global demand that will double or triple as we electrify more and more processes. And to fill these gaps, we need to keep doing what we’ve done well since 2015: we need to ratchet up investment in clean-energy innovation even more.
研究、开发和示范：仍有许多关键的清洁技术还远未达到具备竞争力的低价。我们需要用于长途运输的可持续液体燃料；直接从大气中捕捉二氧化碳的廉价方法；满足全球需求所需的额外可再生能源来源（随着我们电气化的流程越来越多，全球需求将增加一倍或两倍）。2015年以来我们已经取得不错进展，现在要做的是保持势头：我们需要进一步加大对清洁能源创新的投资，以弥补上述鸿沟。
Develop a fair, workable process for scaling up: We cannot pretend an energy transition won’t be disruptive. Although new industries and jobs will appear, some old ones will disappear. New infrastructure will affect the communities where it’s built. In the past, low-income communities and communities of color have suffered disproportionately from decisions about where big infrastructure projects should go, and we cannot let that happen this time. Public policies need to ensure a just transition so that we never pit a livable planet in opposition to people’s livelihoods. Those who could experience disruption need a voice in the process.
制定一个公平、可行的流程来扩大规模：我们不能假装能源转型不会对经济社会产生颠覆性影响。虽然新的行业和工作机会将会出现，但同时一些旧的会消失。新的基础设施将影响其所在的社群。在过去，低收入人群和有色人种群体因大型基础设施项目选址的决定受到了极大的影响，这次我们不能再让这种情况发生。公共政策需要确保一个公正的能源过渡，这样我们就不会让宜居地球这一目标与人们的生计对立起来。转型过程中，那些可能遭受损失的人需要拥有发声的权利。
At the same time, there must be a transition. Last year, voters in Maine blocked the construction of transmission lines needed to bring low-carbon electricity to the Northeast. Some of those transmission lines were slated to cut through farms and forests, but nevertheless we need to be able to make responsible tradeoffs in fair and transparent ways so we can go faster. The unimaginable disruptions caused by a 4-degree rise in temperature will outweigh the downsides of most clean energy solutions—and a strong community engagement process will result in better design and siting of projects.
与此同时，必须进行过渡。去年，缅因州的选民阻止了为东北地区输送低碳电力所需的输电线路的建设——因为其中一些输电线路计划穿过农场和森林。但尽管如此，我们需要能够以公平和透明的方式做出负责任的权衡，以便我们能够更快地发展。与大多数清洁能源解决方案的缺陷相比，气温上升4度会造成的难以想象的破坏力会更大——一个强大的社区参与过程会促成更好的项目设计和选址。
Help people adapt: The climate has already changed dramatically, and it will continue to do so. To minimize the damage these changes cause, we also need to invest in helping people adapt to a warmer climate, rising sea levels, and less predictable weather. That means investing in crop science so that farmers can plant seeds that are more tolerant of heat, an area our foundation has been working in for years. It also means figuring out technologies like desalination to guarantee that communities will have access to clean water, and upgrading port facilities around the world to make them resilient to floods and storms. The world must use the same strategies that have incentivized innovation in mitigation technologies to start getting serious about adaptation, too. We’re expanding our approach at Breakthrough Energy to reflect this perspective.
帮助人们适应：气候已经发生了巨大的变化，并且也将继续变化。为了尽量减少这些变化所造成的危害，我们还需要投资，以此帮助人们适应气候变暖、海平面上升和更难以预测的天气。这意味着投资于农作物科学，让农民能够种植更耐高温的种子，这是我们基金会多年来一直致力于研究的领域。这也意味着研究像海水淡化这样的技术，以确保社区能够获得清洁的水。这还意味着要升级世界各地的港口设施，使其能够抵御洪水和风暴。世界也必须使用像此前鼓励气候变化减缓技术创新那样的策略，来开始认真地对待气候变化适应问题。我们正在拓展在突破能源基金的方法以帮助人们适应气候变化。
The ultimate measure of success is global greenhouse gas emissions: we need to go from 51 billion tons a year to zero in the next three decades. But there’s also a lag when it comes to that metric. Investment in the development, demonstration, and deployment of clean technologies comes first. The drop in emissions comes second, after the Green Premium for any given clean technology gets low enough to scale up.
衡量成功的最终标准是全球温室气体排放量：我们需要在未来30年内将每年510亿吨的温室气体排放量降至零。但这一指标也存在滞后性。第一步是要对清洁技术的开发、示范和应用进行投资。排放量才有可能下降——在任何特定清洁技术的绿色溢价降低到足以扩大规模之后实现。
That is why my interim measure of success is Green Premiums. We need to get those near, at, or even below zero by 2040 for the full range of products and processes we need to replace. Progress won’t go in a straight line. There will be setbacks along the way. But if we can approach the elimination of Green Premiums, I will feel good about the long-term prognosis for the climate.
这就是为什么我用绿色溢价作为衡量成功的临时标准。我们需要在2040年前使我们所有需要替换的产品和工艺的绿色溢价接近、达到甚至低于零。进展不会是一帆风顺的，在这一过程中肯定会有挫折。但如果我们能够接近于消除绿色溢价，我会对气候变化的长期预测感到乐观。
That leaves us 18 years to get from here to there. Europe and the United States, which have historically produced the vast majority of CO2 emissions, owe it to the world not only to eliminate our own emissions but to invest aggressively and get Green Premiums down. This will give other countries that didn’t have much to do with causing climate change a chance to stop emitting greenhouse gases while growing their economies and raising their standard of living.
（要在2040年前消除绿色溢价）从现在算起就只剩下18年的时间了。历史上，绝大多数的二氧化碳排放都来自欧洲和美国，为了世界，我们不仅要消除自己的排放，还要积极投资，降低绿色溢价。这将给那些对气候变化“贡献”不大的国家一个契机，在发展经济和提高生活水平的同时，停止排放温室气体。
As a father of three children, I know that 18 years is not a long time. That’s why I am asking the team at Breakthrough Energy to work with innovators and other experts in the climate community to map out rigorous 10-, 15-, and 20-year plans to drive Green Premiums down to zero. We cannot merely hope for the best. We need to design for it, together.
作为三个孩子的父亲，我知道18年并不长。这就是为什么我要求突破能源基金团队与创新者和气候界的其他专家合作，制定严格的10年、15年和20年计划，将绿色溢价降至零。我们不能仅寄希望于最好的结果，我们需要齐心协力为之布局。
This is the hardest challenge people have ever faced. There has never been a mobilization of this scope, at this scale, at this speed, for this long. But humanity has also never faced an existential crisis like climate change.
这是人们有史以来面临的最艰巨的挑战。从未有过如此大范围、大规模、高速度、长时间的动员。而人类也从未面临过气候变化这样的生存危机。
I am optimistic about what people are capable of in a crisis, and in the long run, I wouldn’t bet against us. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of a long run. We have already achieved many energy breakthroughs. We need to achieve more, faster, to avoid a climate disaster.
我对人们处理危机的能力持乐观态度，若从长计议，赢的概率可能更大。但不幸的是，我们已经没有从长计议的时间了。在能源方面我们已经取得了许多突破。我们需要更快速地取得更多成就，从而避免气候灾难。
