当我在微软工作时，看到一款产品在经过我们几年的开发后终于向公众发布，这总会令人激动。此刻我正感受到同样的期待。我撰写的关于气候变化的新书，如今已能在网上和书店里找到。
I wrote How to Avoid a Climate Disaster because I think we’re at a crucial moment. I’ve seen exciting progress in the more than 15 years that I’ve been learning about energy and climate change. The cost of renewable energy from the sun and wind has dropped dramatically. There’s more public support for taking big steps to avoid a climate disaster than ever before. And governments and companies around the world are setting ambitious goals for reducing emissions.我之所以写这本《如何避免一场气候灾难》，是因为我认为我们正处于一个关键时刻。在我学习能源和气候变化的这15年多中，我看到了令人兴奋的进步。由太阳和风产生的可再生能源的成本已大大降低，公众比以往更加支持迈大步来避免气候灾难，世界各地的政府和公司也都在制定宏伟的减排目标。
What we need now is a plan that turns all this momentum into practical steps to achieve our big goals. That’s what How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is: a plan for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.我们现在需要的是一个计划，一个将所有这些势头转化为实际步骤从而实现大目标的计划。这便是《如何避免一场气候灾难》——一个消除温室气体排放的计划。
I kept the jargon to a minimum because I wanted the book to be accessible to everyone who cares about this issue. I didn’t assume that readers know anything about energy or climate change, though if you do, I hope it will deepen your understanding of this incredibly complex topic. I also included ways in which everyone can contribute—whether you’re a political leader, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a voter, or an individual who wants to know how you can help.我尽量减少使用专业术语，因为我希望这本书能适合所有关心此问题的人阅读。我没有假设读者对能源或气候变化有任何了解，但如果你对这些有所了解，我希望它能加深你对这个极其复杂主题的理解。我还写了每个人都可以做出贡献的方式——无论你是政治家、企业家、发明家、具有选举权的公民，还是你只是想知道自己能如何出力。
The effort I founded called Breakthrough Energy, which started with a venture fund to invest in promising clean energy companies, has expanded to a network of philanthropic programs, investment funds, and advocacy efforts to accelerate energy innovation at every step. We’ll be supporting great thinkers and cutting-edge technologies and businesses, as well as pushing for public- and private-sector policies that will speed up the clean energy transition. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be turning the ideas in my book into action and trying to turn this plan into reality.我创建了一个名为“突破能源”的联盟，它开始时是一家投资有前景的清洁能源公司的风险投资基金，如今已发展成为一个包含慈善项目、投资基金和倡导工作的网络，目的是一步步加速能源创新。我们将支持杰出的思想家、尖端的技术和业务，以及推动公共和私营部门出台加快清洁能源转型的政策。在接下来的几周和几月里，我们将把书中的想法付诸实践，并且努力将这一计划变为现实。
Below is an excerpt from the introduction, which gives you a sense of what the book is about and how I came to write it. I hope you’ll check out the book, but much more important, I hope you’ll do what you can to help us keep the planet livable for generations to come.以下摘录了一段书中的引言，它会让你对这本书的内容及我是如何写它的有大概的了解。我希望你能读一读这本书，但更重要的是，我希望你能用你所能做到的方式，帮助我们为了子孙后代保持地球宜居。
摘录
《如何避免一场气候灾难》
Excerpt from How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Two decades ago, I would never have predicted that one day I would be talking in public about climate change, much less writing a book about it. My background is in software, not climate science, and these days my full-time job is working with my wife, Melinda, at the Gates Foundation, where we are super-focused on global health, development, and U.S. education.二十年前，我不会料到有一天我会公开谈论气候变化，更不用说写关于气候变化的书了。我的专业背景是软件，不是气候科学。而我最近的全职工作，是与我的妻子梅琳达一起在盖茨基金会工作，在那里我们格外关注的是全球健康、全球发展和美国教育。
I came to focus on climate change in an indirect way—through the problem of energy poverty.我关注气候变化是通过一种间接的方式——通过研究能源贫困的问题。
In the early 2000s, when our foundation was just starting out, I began traveling to low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia so I could learn more about child mortality, HIV, and the other big problems we were working on. But my mind was not always on diseases. I would fly into major cities, look out the window, and think, Why is it so dark out there? Where are all the lights I’d see if this were New York, Paris, or Beijing?在2000年代初期，当我们的基金会刚刚成立时，我开始前往位于撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚的低收入国家，从而可以更多地了解儿童死亡、艾滋病病毒，及其他我们当时正致力解决的重大问题。但是我的思绪并不总是在疾病上。我会飞到这些地方的大城市，从机舱窗户望出去，然后思考：这里为什么这么黑？那些我能在纽约、巴黎或北京看到的灯火都去哪儿了？
I learned that about a billion people didn’t have reliable access to electricity and that half of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa. (The picture has improved a bit since then; today roughly 860 million people don’t have electricity.) I began to think about how the world could make energy affordable and reliable for the poor. It didn’t make sense for our foundation to take on this huge problem—we needed it to stay focused on its core mission—but I started kicking around ideas with some inventor friends of mine.我了解到约十亿人没有可靠的电力供应，他们中的一半生活在撒哈拉以南非洲。（情况从那时起得到了改善，如今约有8.6亿人用不上电。）我开始思考世界怎样才能让能源对穷人来说变得可负担且可靠。让我们的基金会去解决这个巨大问题是不现实的——我们需要它专注于自己的核心使命——但是我开始与一些发明家朋友交换意见。
In late 2006 I met with two former Microsoft colleagues who were starting nonprofits focused on energy and climate. They brought along two climate scientists who were well versed in the issues, and the four of them showed me the data connecting greenhouse gas emissions to climate change.在2006年底，我见了两位微软的前同事，他们当时正在创办专注于能源和气候的非营利组织。他们带来了两位对这些问题有深刻洞见的气候科学家，然后他们四人向我展示了将温室气体排放与气候变化联系起来的数据。
I knew that greenhouse gases were making the temperature rise, but I had assumed that there were cyclical variations or other factors that would naturally prevent a true climate disaster. And it was hard to accept that as long as humans kept emitting any amount of greenhouse gases, temperatures would keep going up.我知道温室气体正在使温度上升，但我曾经以为一些周期性的变化或其他因素会自然地阻止一场真正的气候灾难。而只要人类不停排放温室气体，不论量大量小，气温都会持续上升，这种观点让人难以接受。
I went back to the group several times with follow-up questions. Eventually it sank in. The world needs to provide more energy so the poorest can thrive, but we need to provide that energy without releasing any more greenhouse gases.我随后几次又问了这群人一些后续问题，最终完全理解了。世界需要提供更多的能源，从而让最贫穷的人能够发展繁荣，但我们需要既提供这些能源，又不释放更多的温室气体。
Now the problem seemed even harder. It wasn’t enough to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the poor. It also had to be clean.那么问题似乎变得更加棘手。仅仅为穷人提供廉价、可靠的能源还不够。这些能源还必须是清洁的。
Within a few years, I had become convinced of three things:在几年之内，我已经确信了三件事：
1. To avoid a climate disaster, we have to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions.1. 为了避免一场气候灾难，我们必须将温室气体排放量降至零。
2. We need to deploy the tools we already have, like solar and wind, faster and smarter.2. 我们需要以更快、更聪明的方式部署我们已有的工具，例如太阳能和风能。
3. And we need to create and roll out breakthrough technologies that can take us the rest of the way.3. 我们需要创造并推广可以使我们走完剩余征程的突破性技术。
The case for zero was, and is, rock solid. Setting a goal to only reduce our emissions—but not eliminate them—won’t do it. The only sensible goal is zero.主张零排放在过去和现在看来都绝对可靠。将目标设定为只是减少排放而非消除是无济于事的。唯一明智的目标是零排放。
This book suggests a way forward, a series of steps we can take to give ourselves the best chance to avoid a climate disaster. It breaks down into five parts:本书提出了一条前进的道路——我们可以采取的一系列步骤，从而使我们以最大可能避免一场气候灾难。它分为五个部分：
Why zero? In chapter 1, I’ll explain more about why we need to get to zero, including what we know (and what we don’t) about how rising temperatures will affect people around the world.为什么是零？在第1章中，我将详细解释为什么我们需要达到零排放，包括我们已知的（和未知的）关于气温升高将如何影响世界各地的人们。
The bad news: Getting to zero will be really hard. Because every plan to achieve anything starts with a realistic assessment of the barriers that stand in your way, in chapter 2 we’ll take a moment to consider the challenges we’re up against.坏消息：实现零排放真的很难。因为每一个为了完成目标的计划，都要从现实地评估你前进道路上的阻碍开始。所以在第2章中，我们将花一些时间来考虑我们所面临的挑战。
How to have an informed conversation about climate change. In chapter 3, I’ll cut through some of the confusing statistics you might have heard and share the handful of questions I keep in mind in every conversation I have about climate change. They have kept me from going wrong more times than I can count, and I hope they will do the same for you.如何展开一场关于气候变化的明智对话。在第3章中，我将简要介绍你可能会听到的一些令人困惑的统计数据，以及分享每次我在进行与气候变化有关的对话时，都会牢记在心的一些问题。它们使我避免犯错犯到自己数不过来，而我希望它们对你也同样有效。
The good news: We can do it. In chapters 4 through 9, I’ll break down the areas where today’s technology can help and where we need breakthroughs. This will be the longest part of the book, because there’s so much to cover. We have some solutions we need to deploy in a big way now, and we also need a lot of innovations to be developed and spread around the world in the next few decades.好消息：我们可以做到。在第4至9章中，我将把现有技术可以提供帮助的领域及我们需要突破的领域进行分解。这将是本书中最长的部分，因为需要覆盖的内容太多。我们现在有一些需要大规模部署的解决方案，而在随后几十年里，我们还需要很多尚待开发的创新并在全世界进行推广。
Steps we can take now. I wrote this book because I see not just the problem of climate change; I also see an opportunity to solve it. That’s not pie-in-the-sky optimism. We already have two of the three things you need to accomplish any major undertaking. First, we have ambition, thanks to the passion of a growing global movement led by young people who are deeply concerned about climate change. Second, we have big goals for solving the problem as more national and local leaders around the world commit to doing their part.我们现在可以采取的步骤。我写这本书是因为我不仅看到了气候变化的问题，而且看到了解决这个问题的机会。这不是不切实际的乐观。我们已经拥有完成任何重大任务所需三样东西中的两样：首先，我们有雄心，这要归功于来自一场不断发展的全球性运动的热情，这场运动由深切关注气候变化的年轻人所领导；其次，我们有解决问题的大目标，随着世界上更多的国家和地方领导人承诺做好自己的工作。
Now we need the third component: a concrete plan to achieve our goals.现在我们需要第三个部分：一项实现大目标的具体计划。
Just as our ambitions have been driven by an appreciation for climate science, any practical plan for reducing emissions has to be driven by other disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, economics, finance, and more. So in the final chapters of this book, I’ll propose a plan based on guidance I’ve gotten from experts in all these disciplines. In chapters 10 and 11, I’ll focus on policies that governments can adopt; in chapter 12, I’ll suggest steps that each of us can take to help the world get to zero. Whether you’re a government leader, an entrepreneur, or a voter with a busy life and too little free time (or all of the above), there are things you can do to help avoid a climate disaster.正如我们的雄心被对气候科学的理解所推动，任何减排的实际计划都必须由其他学科来推动：物理学、化学、生物学、工程学、政治学、经济学、金融学等等。因此，在本书的最后几章中，我将基于我从所有这些学科的专家处得到的指导意见提出一个计划。在第10和11章中，我将重点介绍政府可以采取的政策。在第12章中，我将提出我们每个人都可以采取的帮助世界达到零排放的措施。无论你是政府领导人、企业家，还是过着忙碌生活没多少空闲时间的普通公民（或以上全是），你都能为帮助避免一场气候灾难做些事。
That’s it. Let’s get started.讲完了。让我们开始行动吧。
选编自：比尔·盖茨
文章来源: 深圳国际公益学院
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