【SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN December 2019】Adapt or Mitigate? Both

       To cope with climate change, we need every strategy we’ve got 
       我们需要尝试每一种方法来应对气候变化。 
 
       Not that long ago “adaptation” was considered a dirty word among climate activists. Their view was that if we could retool our lives to accommodate the consequences of climate change— rising seas, longer wildfire seasons, and a long list of other not so natural disasters—industries and governments would use that as an excuse to avoid a more important job: curbing our emissions of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that cause these problems in the first place.

       不久之前，‘适应’对环境气候保护人士来说还是个肮脏的字眼。他们的认为，如果我们重新调整了我们的生活方式去适应气候恶化带来的影响-洪水，漫长的野火季节，和更多的自然灾害，行业和政府会以此为借口逃避他们的责任：首先，控制导致这些问题的温室气体的排放。

      That position might have been reasonable in 1988, when climatologist James E. Hansen first focused the world’s attention on the threat. Back then there was still time to cut back on emissions in a measured way. More than three decades later, however, we know mitigation didn’t happen. The atmosphere is packed with more carbon dioxide and methane than ever. The most significant reduction effort to date, the much hailed 2015 Paris climate accord, has not yet put a dent in the problem. Climate change is a clearer and more present danger than it has ever been.

      这种立场在1988年或许是正确的，当气候学家James E. Hansen第一次将全世界的注意力集中在气候威胁的时候。那时候仍然有时间以一种温和递进的方式去削减排放。三十多年后，我们知道减排的目的并没有达到。大气中充满了前所未有的二氧化碳和甲烷，现在最重要的是节能减排，所以2015年巴黎气候协议收到了太多的推崇和赞扬，但至今也没有解决这个问题。气候变化比以往任何时候都显得更加危险和紧迫。

       As a result, dismissing adaptation is no longer an option. In September a newly formed global commission led by Ban Ki- moon, Bill Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, released its first report about the urgent need to adapt to the effects of climate change, which are quickly accelerating. Central banks, militaries and reinsurance companies are sounding the alarm about the financial consequences of doing nothing. U.S. presidential candidates (the Democrats, anyway) talked on national television about relocating people away from flooded coastlines—a topic that was long taboo. But adapting well takes serious money, and the mechanisms for funding it are misaligned. Many industries and governments, still staving off a systematic overhaul of energy and economic frameworks, are only taking incremental steps to deal with the effects of global warming. One result is that vulnerable communities already experiencing the impact are not receiving adaptation funding from the groups that contributed most to the problem.

      对于这个结果，否定适应这种方式并不可取。在9月，一个由Ban Ki-moon，Bill Gates和国际货币基金组织总裁Kristalina Georgieva领导的全球委员会成立了。它发布了关于迫切需要适应气候变化影响的第一份报告，这份报告正在加速发挥它的作用。中央银行，军队和保险公司对对此无所作为的金融机构发出了警告。美国总统候选人（至少包括民主党）在国家电视台上讲到要将被海水淹没居住地的居民重新安置的问题-这是一个禁忌的话题，首先要做好需要一笔客观的资金的准备和与其资金协调机构的匹配问题。大多数的行业和政府，仍然在拖延能源和经济框架的系统性革新，只是采取渐进的步骤去应对全球变暖带来的影响。而带来的一个结果是，已经受到影响的弱势群体没有从对‘适应’方案中贡献最大的群体取得合适的资金。

       Powerful tools are coming on the scene that could help increase adaptation funding and direct it to those who need it most. Researchers in the emerging field of attribution science, for example, can determine how much climate change is worsening the impact of natural events, as described in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that found that human-caused climate change probably led to at least 19 percent more rainfall during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 than would have been expected from the storm otherwise. What if fossil-fuel companies had to pay for their role in creating the extra deluge? People working in attribution law are beginning to tackle such questions by launching law- suits seeking to hold emitters accountable for the damage caused by climate change and the expenses of future adaptation.

        有效的方式正在出现，可以帮助日益增长的资金并将其分发给最帮助的地方。研究员在归因科学（ext：https://www.preventionweb.net/publications/view/55472）这个新兴领域中，例如，可以确定气候变化对自然事件的影响恶劣程度，正如最近在地球物理研究快报上发表的论文所描述的一样，论文指出，人类造成的气候改变可能会使2017年的Harvey 暴风比预期至少增多19%的降雨量。假使化石燃料公司必须为他们在造成额外的洪水中扮演的角色买单呢？从事归因法工作的人开始通过提起法律诉讼来处理问题，让排放者对气候改变所造成的费用和将来适应气候负责，

        The focus on mitigation has led to research and debate about the methods, technologies and economics of lowering concentrations of greenhouse gases. But innovations for adaptation tend to be far behind. Ideas for adapting to sea-level rise, for instance, are too focused on “hard” solutions such as seawalls, whereas natural features could be used more widely as protective infrastructure. More cities could be changing their zoning laws to prevent the development of frequently flooded land. Alignment of insurance programs with climate threats could help prevent exploitative practices in real estate development and mortgage lending. And families who want to relocate to safer areas should get logistical and financial support to do so, rather than being forced to rebuild in increasingly dangerous locations.

      对减排的关注导致了对减排方法的研究和争论，温室气体浓度的科技和经济学，但是适应气候的创新还是远远落后于气候的恶化。比如在解决海平面上升的问题中，有的方法是使用海堤这种硬性方式来解决这个问题，然而自然特征可以更加适合作为保护屏障。更多的城市可能会更改他们的地区的法律去预防已经被水淹没土地的开发频率。将保险计划和气候威胁挂钩可能有助于预防在房地产开发和抵押贷款中的剥削行为。并且想要重新搬迁至安全区的家庭应该得到后勤和资金的支持，而不是被迫在愈发危险的地方重新建立居住点。

        Innovative resilience plans have already been launched in some low-lying nations. Fiji’s Environment and Climate Adaptation Levy, which includes a 10 percent income tax on the rich, has produced more than $117 million in funding for projects that make Fiji’s built and natural environments more resilient to rising waters and heavier storms. And Tri Rismaharini, mayor of Surabaya, Indonesia, has transformed paved land into hundreds of parks and restored mangrove forests that absorb floodwaters and buffer the city from cyclone-generated storm surges. They also pull carbon out of the atmosphere and act as a natural coolant—there by reducing the need for air-conditioning.

        创新恢复计划已经在一些地势低洼国家启动了。  斐济（ext: https://baike.baidu.com/item/斐济/213600）已经为环境和气候适应开始征税，其中包含了对富人增加10%的所得税，已经产生了超过117百万美元的资金用于斐济建造和国家环境恢复，用以应对水位上升和更大风暴的风险。印尼泗水市（ext：https://baike.baidu.com/item/泗水/8484396）市长Tri Rismaharini，把已经铺砌完成的土地改造成了数百个公园并且修复了红树林用来吸收洪水，在飓风引发的风暴潮来临时作为城市的缓冲区。他们也从大气中吸收碳并且以此作为自然的冷却剂，以此降低对空调的需求。

        None of these adaptive actions—which are essential for health, safety and economic stability—diminish the need for a rapid global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. But they do make climate risk more visible and much harder for politicians and the financial sector to ignore.

        所有这些对健康，安全和经济稳定至关重要的适应行动，都没有减少全球化石燃料迅速过渡为清洁能源的渴求，但是他们让气候风险问题变得更加突出使政治家和金融部门更加难以忽略这个问题。