《经济学人20170715摘选》- 气候变化与不平等

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这篇文的标题是 - Climate change and inequality - The rich pollute, the poor suffer
气候变化与不平等 - 富人排放，穷人受苦

ON JULY 12, the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica disgorged a chunk of ice the size of Delaware, a small state on America’s east coast. America’s government seems unfazed by the possibility that such shifts might one day threaten Delaware itself. Its climate defiance grows not only from the power of its fossil-fuel industry and the scepticism of the Republican party, but also from a sense of insulation from the costs of global warming. This confidence is misplaced. New research indicates not only that climate change will impose heavy costs on the American economy, but also that it will exacerbate inequality.
7月12日，南极洲的拉森C冰架吐出了一块相当于美国东海岸特拉华州那么大的冰块。而美国政府看起来跟没事儿人一样，丝毫不担心这事儿哪天真的会威胁到特拉华州。美国对于气候的这种无视正在加剧，这不光能从他们的化石燃料工业的兴旺以及共和党持有的怀疑态度看得出，我们更是感觉到美国对于全球变暖所造成损失是一种不问不顾的状态。这种自信安错了地儿。最新研究指出，气候变化不光只是会对美国经济造成严重打击，他还会进一步加剧贫富分化

Calculating the economic effects of climate change is no simple matter. It means working out how a given increase in global temperature affects local weather conditions; how local weather affects things like mortality and crop yields; how those changes add to or subtract from regional GDP; and how thousands of local-level changes in GDP add up nationally or globally. No sweat.
计算气候变化对于经济的影响可不是件简单的事情。他意味着要搞清楚当全球气温的上升一个特定的温度时，一个地区的温度会怎么变。而一个地区的温度变化又是怎样影响当地死亡率和粮食产量，这些影响如何增加或减少这个地区的GDP，最终各个地区的GDP变化汇总之后对整个国家乃至全球产生了怎样的影响。看到这是不是有庐山瀑布汗的感觉

The sheer number of moving parts means that the “damage function” used in many papers, which links changes in global temperature to economic costs, is not well characterized. The authors of a new study published in Science aim to firm things up. Solomon Hsiang of the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Kopp of Rutgers University and their co-authors run their climate models repeatedly, for three different temperature scenarios, to see how 15 different economic variables behave in 29,000 possible future states of the world, for each of 3,143 American counties.
指数的各种大的起伏意味着很多报告所引用的，反映全球气候温变化对经济影响的“损伤函数”并没有符合实际情况。一份最近科学报告的作者正试着把它确定下来，加州伯克利大学的Solomon Hsiang，罗格斯大学的Robert Kopp以及他们合作伙伴重复的实验他们的气候模型。用了三个不同温度的场景来监测15个不同的经济变量在美国3143个地区的所产生的29000种可能性。

Using that information, they assemble probability distributions showing the costs America is likely to sustain by the end of the century. Their findings are stark. Even a modest rise in temperature impairs American economic performance. An increase in global temperature of 1.5°C is very likely to reduce annual output by the end of the century by between zero and 1.7%; a rise of 4°C would probably generate losses between 1.5% and 5.6% of GDP. These figures mask considerable variation across America. In some counties the models forecast a rise in local GDP of 10%; others face a staggering expected decline in annual output of 20%.
通过这些信息，他们组合了各种可能性，认为美国的成本应该可以维持到本世纪末。这个发现有点吓人。哪怕是少量的气温升高都会影响到美国经济的表现。全球气温每升高1.5度，都极有可能导致在本世纪末以前，年产量下滑零到一点七个百分点。气温上升4度则大概会导致1.5%-5.6%的GDP损失。这些数据掩盖了美国各个地区的多样性。在某些地区，模型推测本地的的GDP增加10%,而其他的地区则惊人的减产20%

It is not surprising that the nationwide costs of climate change should conceal losses in some places and gains in others; that is how averages work. But the distribution of losses matters. The study shows that the pain of climate change will fall more heavily on America’s poorest bits than on its richest areas. Falling crop yields and labour productivity, and rising mortality and crime, are expected to be especially pronounced in America’s hot southern counties, where incomes are below the national average. In richer New England and the Pacific north-west, in contrast, winters will be milder and less deadly, and agricultural yields may rise. The aggregate economic cost of climate change is reduced because the burden disproportionately falls on those with low incomes, hardly the ideal way to slash the cost of warming.
国家应对气候变化的整体成本体现不出某些地区的损失和另外地区的获益，这当然没什么惊讶的，平均数就是这么来的。但是如何分摊这些损失是个大问题。研究显示，气候变化造成的损失，更多是落在了美国最穷而不是最富的地区。下降的粮食产量和劳动生产率以及更高的死亡率和犯罪率，多发于美国南部那些炎热的省份，而这些地方的收入则在于国家平均线以下。在更加富庶的新英格兰和太平洋西北部地区，情况恰恰相反。冬天没那么寒冷和致命，粮食产量反而会增加。应对气候变化的整体经济成本是下降的，因为负担被不成比例的摊到低收入群体的头上，而这根本就不是削减全球变暖成本的合理方案。

Climate change is costly in part because its effects are uncertain, impairing investments and other actions which might mitigate its harms. Thus people would be willing to pay some money to know with greater certainty what higher temperatures will mean in future. Uncertainty around economic projections is highest in the poorest counties. For some of these places the worst outcomes could mean GDP losses of 40% or more. The authors reckon that after adjusting for the uncertainty of climate change, and for its unequal effects, the economic damage caused by a global temperature rise of 3°C could be 1.5-3 times bigger than the unadjusted aggregate figures suggest.
气候变化的代价很高，部分原因就是效应的不确定性。减少投资和相关的行为也许能够减缓这种伤害。因此人们更愿意为了解升高的气温对将来的影响这种确定性更大的事儿买单。这种对经济影响的投射效应对于贫困地区来说最具不确定性。对于某些地方，GDP的损失可能会达到40%甚至更多。作者估计，在调整了气候变化的不确定性以及它所造成的不规则影响后，全球气温上升三度对于经济造成危害可以达到没有调整之前的1.5到3倍

Though focused on America, the analysis also describes the world’s climate problem. The costs of global climate change will again be unevenly (and uncertainly) distributed, but harm will often be smaller for richer, temperate countries. As a result the estimated economic loss from warming is almost certainly understated, because the nastiest effects are concentrated in places where incomes are lowest: and, correspondingly, where tumbling incomes have the smallest effect on global GDP.
虽说分析主要聚焦在美国，但世界性的气候变化也是有所描述。全球气候变化的代价同样也是不均匀分布的。那些富裕的温带国家分担的份额更小。这种结果导致了因为变暖所导致的经济损失大概率是被低估的，因为那些最严重的影响几乎都集中在贫穷地区，而且相应的，这些地区收入的骤减对于全球GDP的影响是最微乎其微的。

Yet just because a county in Mississippi faces a harsher future as a result of climate change than a county in Washington does not mean Mississippians must fare worse than Washingtonians. The authors hold the distribution of America’s population constant in conducting their analysis, but point out that harm could be reduced by large-scale migration. Is that a realistic possibility?
当然，因为气候变化对一个密西西比州地区的影响比华盛顿州大，并不意味着密西西比州一定就比华盛顿州差。作者的研究是基于美国人口分布保持现状的前提，但同时指出，这种损失可以通过大规模的人口迁徙来减轻？你信么？

People do move as it grows hotter—but not in a uniform way. Research by Cristina Cattaneo and Giovanni Peri, for instance, shows that migration is an important element of the response to warming in middle-income countries, but that in poorer places the cost of moving locks people in place, amplifying the regressive impact of climate change. What is more, climate change might well require broad migrations from the middle latitudes to countries farther north or south, yet rich-country borders are far less porous (with respect to migrants from poorer countries, at least) than those in the developing world. Even within the large domestic territory of a country like America, mobility cannot be taken for granted; it has been falling in recent decades, even as economic fortunes have diverged and an opioid epidemic has ravaged some parts of the country while sparing others.
人们在气候变热的时候的确是会迁徙，但步调不一定一致。Cristina Cattaneo 和 Giovanni Peri的研究就举了一个例子，指出在中等收入国家，迁移的确是应对变暖的好手段，但是穷一些的地方，高昂的搬迁费用把很多人留在了当地，强化了气候变化的负面影响。更要命的是，气候变化可能会促使中间维度的国家往南边或者北边迁徙，而富裕国家的边境相对于发展中国家可没那么好进（至少对于贫穷国家的移民来说）。即便是美国这么大的地盘儿，也不是说想搬就能搬。最近几十年这种情况一直在减少，哪怕财富已经开始分化。体制上的根本缺陷让一些地方饱受摧残而另一些地方则获益良多

Ice in their veins
The rich are disproportionate contributors to the carbon emissions that power climate change. It is cruel and perverse, therefore, that the costs of warming should be disproportionately borne by the poor. And it is both insult and injury that the wealthy are more mobile in the face of climate-induced hardship, and more effective at limiting the mobility of others. The strains this injustice places on the social fabric might well lead to woes more damaging than rising temperatures themselves.
冰块的纹理
富人的碳排放量对于影响气候变化那是占了大头，这是个残酷而又恶心的事实。因此，变暖的代价就大多砸到了穷人的头上。富人应对气候变化所带来的困境时比穷人显得游刃有余很多，而且他们对于如何限制其他人和他们一样轻松的手段方面那是颇有心得。这真是一种羞辱和伤害。不公正所带来的这种压力对于社会所造成的伤害，也许要比气温上升本身，严重的多

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