2017年06月六级第1套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) Fossil fuel prices are likely to stay "low for long." Notwithstanding important recent progress in developing renewable fuel sources, low fossil fuel prices could discourage further innovation in, and adoption of, cleaner energy technologies. The result would be higher emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

化石燃料价格可能会长期保持低位。尽管可再生能源开发近期取得了重要进展，但低廉的化石燃料价格可能会抑制更清洁能源技术的进一步创新与采用。其结果将是二氧化碳及其他温室气体排放量的增加。

B) Policymakers should not allow low energy prices to derail the clean energy transition. Action to restore appropriate price incentives, notably through corrective carbon pricing, is urgently needed to lower the risk of irreversible and potentially devastating effects of climate change. That approach also offers fiscal benefits.

政策制定者不应让低廉的能源价格阻碍清洁能源转型。为降低气候变化带来不可逆转且可能具有毁灭性影响的风险，亟需采取行动恢复适当的价格激励，特别是通过纠正性的碳定价。这种方法还能带来财政收益。

C) Oil prices have dropped by over 60% since June 2014. A commonly held view in the oil industry is that "the best cure for low oil prices is low oil prices." The reasoning behind this saying is that low oil prices discourage investment in new production capacity, eventually shifting the oil supply curve backward and bringing prices back up as existing oil fields -- which can be tapped at relatively low marginal cost -- are depleted. In fact, in line with past experience capital expenditure in the oil sector has dropped sharply in many producing countries, including the United States. The dynamic adjustment to low oil prices may, however, be different this time around.

自2014年6月以来，油价已下跌超过60%。石油行业普遍认为，“治愈低油价的最佳药方就是低油价”。此说法背后的逻辑是，低油价会抑制对新产能的投资，最终使石油供给曲线向后移动，并在现有油田（可以较低的边际成本开采）逐渐枯竭后推高价格。事实上，与以往经验一致，包括美国在内的许多产油国石油行业的资本支出已大幅下降。然而，此次对低油价的动态调整可能与以往不同。

D) Oil prices are expected to remain lower for longer. The advent of new technologies has added about 4.2 million barrels per day to the crude oil market, contributing to a global over-supply. In addition, other factors are putting downward pressure on oil prices: change in the strategies behavior of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the projected increase in Iranian exports, the scaling- down of global demand (especially from emerging markets), the long-term drop in petroleum consumption in the United States, and some displacement of oil by substitutes. These likely persistent forces, like the growth of shale (页岩) oil, point to a "low for long" scenario. Futures markets, which show only a modest recovery of prices to around $60 a barrel by 2019, support this view.

预计油价将在更长时间内保持较低水平。新技术的出现为原油市场增加了约每日420万桶的供应，加剧了全球供应过剩。此外，其他因素也对油价构成下行压力：石油输出国组织战略行为的改变、伊朗出口预期增长、全球需求（尤其是来自新兴市场的需求）缩减、美国石油消耗的长期下降以及石油被部分替代品所取代。这些可能持久的作用力，如页岩油的增长，指向一种“长期低油价”的情景。期货市场（显示到2019年价格仅温和回升至每桶60美元左右）也支持这一观点。

E) Natural gas and coal—also fossil fuels—have similarly seen price declines that look to be long-lived. Coal and natural gas are mainly used for electricity generation, whereas oil is used mostly to power transportation, yet the prices of all these energy sources are linked. The North American shale gas boom has resulted in record low prices there. The recent discovery of the giant Zohr gas field off the Egyptian coast will eventually have impact on pricing in the Mediterranean region and Europe, and there is significant development potential in many other places, notably Argentina. Coal prices also are low, owing to over-supply and the scaling-down of demand, especially from China, which burns half of the world's coal.

同为化石燃料的天然气和煤炭，其价格下跌看来也会长期持续。煤炭和天然气主要用于发电，而石油主要用于驱动交通运输，但所有这些能源的价格是相互关联的。北美页岩气的繁荣导致当地价格创下历史新低。最近在埃及近海发现的巨型祖赫尔气田，最终将影响地中海区域和欧洲的定价，而其他许多地方，尤其是阿根廷，也具有巨大的开发潜力。由于供应过剩和需求（特别是消耗全球一半煤炭的中国的需求）缩减，煤炭价格同样处于低位。

F) Technological innovations have unleashed the power of renewables such as wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal (地热). Even Africa and the Middle East, home to economies that are heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports, have enormous potential to develop renewables. For example, the United Arab Emirates has endorsed an ambitious target to draw 24% of its primary energy consumption from renewable sources by 2021.

技术创新释放了风能、水能、太阳能和地热能等可再生能源的潜力。即使是严重依赖化石燃料出口的非洲和中东经济体，也拥有发展可再生能源的巨大潜力。例如，阿拉伯联合酋长国已批准了一项雄心勃勃的目标：到2021年，其一次能源消费的24%将来自可再生能源。

G) Progress in the development of renewables could be fragile, however, if fossil fuel prices remain low for long. Renewables account for only a small share of global primary energy consumption, which is still dominated by fossil fuels—30% each for coal and oil, 25% for natural gas. But renewable energy will have to displace fossil fuels to a much greater extent in the future to avoid unacceptable climate risks.

然而，如果化石燃料价格长期维持低位，可再生能源的发展进程可能会十分脆弱。可再生能源在全球一次能源消费中所占份额仍然很小，目前仍由化石燃料主导——煤炭和石油各占30%，天然气占25%。但未来可再生能源必须更大程度地替代化石燃料，以避免出现不可接受的气候风险。

H) Unfortunately, the current low prices for oil, gas, and coal may provide little incentive for research to find even cheaper substitutes for those fuels. There is strong evidence that both innovation and adoption of cleaner technology are strongly encouraged by higher fossil fuel prices. The same is true for new technologies for alleviating fossil fuel emissions.

不幸的是，当前低廉的石油、天然气和煤炭价格，可能几乎无法为寻找更廉价替代燃料的研究提供激励。有强有力证据表明，较高的化石燃料价格能极大地促进创新和采用更清洁的技术。对于减轻化石燃料排放的新技术也是如此。

I) The current low fossil fuel price environment will thus certainly delay the energy transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources. Unless renewables become cheap enough that substantial carbon deposits are left underground for a very long time, if not forever, the planet will like be exposed to potentially catastrophic climate risks.

因此，当前的低化石燃料价格环境无疑会延迟从化石燃料向清洁能源的能源转型。除非可再生能源变得足够便宜，能够使大量碳储量长期（如果不是永远）留在地下，否则地球将面临可能灾难性的气候风险。

J) Some climate impacts may already be discernible. For example, the United Nations Children Fund estimates that some 11 million children in Africa face hunger, disease, and water shortage as a result of the strongest El Nino (厄尔尼诺) weather phenomenon in decades. Many scientists believe that El Nino events, caused by warming in the Pacific, are becoming more intense as a result of climate change.

一些气候影响可能已经显现。例如，联合国儿童基金会估计，非洲约有1100万儿童因近几十年来最强烈的厄尔尼诺天气现象而面临饥饿、疾病和水资源短缺。许多科学家认为，由太平洋变暖引起的厄尔尼诺事件，正因气候变化而变得更加剧烈。

K) Nations from around the world have gathered in Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21, with the goal of a universal and potentially legally-binding agreement reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need very broad participation to fully address global tragedy that results when countries fail to take into account the negative impact of their carbon emissions on the rest of the world. Moreover, non-participation by nations, if sufficiently widespread, can undermine the political will of participating countries to act.

世界各国齐聚巴黎，参加联合国气候变化大会（COP 21），目标是达成一项普遍且可能具有法律约束力的协议，以减少温室气体排放。我们需要非常广泛的参与，以充分应对各国未能考虑其碳排放对世界其他地区负面影响所导致的全球悲剧。此外，如果参与度不足，可能会削弱参与国采取行动的政治意愿。

L) The nations participating at COP 21 are focusing on quantitative emissions-reduction commitments. Economic reasoning shows that the least expensive way for each country is to put a price on carbon emissions. The reason is that when carbon is priced, those emissions reductions that are least costly to implement will happen first. The International Monetary Fund calculates that countries can generate substantial fiscal revenues by eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and levying carbon charges that capture the domestic damage caused by emissions. A tax on upstream carbon sources is one easy way to put a price on carbon emissions, although some countries may wish to use other methods, such as emissions trading schemes. In order to maximize global welfare, every country's carbon pricing should reflect not only the purely domestic damage from emissions, but also the damage to foreign countries.

参加COP 21的国家正专注于量化的减排承诺。经济学原理表明，对每个国家来说，最经济的方式是对碳排放定价。原因在于，当碳被定价时，那些实施成本最低的减排措施会率先发生。国际货币基金组织估算，各国可以通过取消化石燃料补贴和征收能涵盖排放所造成国内损害的碳费，来获得可观的财政收入。对上游碳源征税是对碳排放定价的一种简便方法，尽管一些国家可能希望使用其他方法，如排放交易体系。为了最大化全球福利，每个国家的碳定价不仅应反映排放造成的纯粹国内损害，还应反映对其他国家的损害。

M) Setting the right carbon price will therefore efficiently align the costs paid by carbon users with the true social opportunity cost of using carbon. By raising relative demand for clean energy sources, a carbon price would also help align the market return to clean-energy innovation with its social return, spurring the refinement of existing technologies and the development of new ones. And it would raise the demand for technologies such as carbon capture and storage, spurring their further development. If not corrected by the appropriate carbon price, low fossil fuel prices are not accurately signaling to markets the true social profitability of clean energy. While alternative estimates of the damage from carbon emissions differ, and it's especially hard to reckon the likely costs of possible catastrophic climate events, most estimates suggest substantial negative effects.

因此，设定合理的碳价将能有效地使碳使用者支付的成本与使用碳的真实社会机会成本相一致。通过提高对清洁能源的相对需求，碳价还将有助于使清洁能源创新的市场回报与其社会回报相一致，促进现有技术的改进和新技术的开发。同时，它将提高对碳捕获与封存等技术的需求，推动其进一步发展。若没有适当的碳价进行纠正，低廉的化石燃料价格就未能向市场准确传达清洁能源的真实社会盈利能力。尽管对碳排放损害的估算各不相同，且尤其难以评估可能发生的灾难性气候事件的潜在成本，但大多数估算都表明存在重大的负面影响。

N) Direct subsidies to research and development have been adopted by some governments but are a poor substitute for a carbon price; they do only part of the job, leaving in place market incentives to overuse fossil fuels and thereby add to the stock of atmospheric greenhouse gases without regard to the collateral (附带的) costs.

一些政府已采用对研发的直接补贴，但这并不能很好地替代碳价；它们只完成了部分工作，保留了过度使用化石燃料的市场激励，从而在不考虑附带成本的情况下增加了大气中温室气体的存量。

O) The hope is that the success of COP 21 opens the door to future international agreement on carbon prices. Agreement on an international carbon-price floor would be a good starting point in that process. Failure to address comprehensively the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, however, exposes all generations, present and future, to incalculable risks.

希望在于，COP 21的成功为未来国际碳价协议打开了大门。就国际碳价底线达成共识将是这一进程的良好起点。然而，未能全面解决温室气体排放问题，将使当代及后代所有人面临难以估量的风险。