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【原文标题】Who's more toxic, China or India?
【中文标题】中国和印度，谁更毒？
【登载媒体】华盛顿邮报
【来源地址】http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121005991.html
【译 者】批一啊pia
【翻译方式】 人工
【声 明】 本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【译 文】
Politicians opposed to unilateral reductions in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions often claim that China and India are the real problem. Some have even supported legislation barring federal regulation of carbon dioxide emissions until the world's most populous nations do the same. China and India are always lumped together. But which of the two countries is more dangerous to the environment?
反对美国单边减少温室气体排放的政治家，总是声称中国和印度才是真正的问题所在。他们中甚至有人支持通过立法来阻止联邦政府对二氧化碳排放的管制，直到世界上人口最多的两个国家也这样做为止。中国和印度总是被绑在一起。但是这两个国家中哪个对环境更危险呢？
Before pitting Asia's behemoths against one another in a cage match of environmental destruction, we should note that Westerners remain unsurpassed in the field. Take, for instance, greenhouse-gas emissions. As of 2007, the average American was responsible for 19.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, with Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians in hot pursuit. China (at 4.7 metric tons per person) and India (1.2 metric tons) lag far behind. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, neither country is likely to surpass the United States for decades.
在围观亚洲两头巨兽在环境破坏的笼中互斗之前，我们应该注意到西方人在这个领域从未被超越。例如，2007年的温室气体排放美国人均每年排放19.8公吨二氧化碳，紧随其后的是澳大利亚人、新西兰人、加拿大人。中国人均排放4.7公吨，印度人均1.2公吨，远远不如前面那些国家。根据美国能源信息管理局的数据，这两个国家都不可能在几十年内超过美国。
It also bears mentioning that China produces one-third of its CO2 emissions manufacturing goods for export. Forty percent of the consumer goods purchased in the United States are made in China, representing more than 18 percent of China's total exports. So blaming China for climate change is a bit like blaming your chauffeur for using so much gas.
这还不提中国产生的二氧化碳气体中有三分之一来自出口制造业。美国购买的消费品中有40%是中国制造的，超过中国出口总量的18%。所以责怪中国造成气候变化，有点像责怪你的私人司机用了那么多汽油一样。
But if forced to choose between the rising Asian powers, China is clearly poised to do more environmental damage over the next few decades than India. Although its per-capita emissions are lower, China surpassed the United States as the largest total emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007. India is in fourth place, with less than one-third the output of China.
但是如果一定要在崛起中的亚洲强国中选一个的话，很显然中国非常泰然地将在接下里几十年中比印度对环境造成更多伤害。虽然中国的人均排放量比美国低，但是在2007年在总量上超过美国成为最大的温室气体排放国。印度排在第四，排放量还不到中国的三分之一。
To boot, China's upward trend in emissions is the steepest in the world. In 2000, China consumed just 9 percent of the world's energy. By 2007, that share had reached 16 percent. India's share of global energy consumption, in contrast, rose from 3 percent to 4 percent during the same period.
再者，中国温室气体排放的向上走势在世界上是最陡的。2000年只消耗了世界9%的能源，到2007年上升到了16%，对比印度，在同一时期内从3%上升到了4%。
Although India's population is growing faster than China's, that difference isn't nearly enough to offset the widening gap between the two countries in per-capita emissions. According to some estimates, the two countries will have approximately the same population in 2035, about 1.49 billion residents each. But China will be responsible for more than six times as much carbon dioxide emissions as India. Fifteen years later, when India has 191 million more people than China, China will still emit 10 billion more metric tons of CO2 than India. That difference is the equivalent of putting 1.9 billion extra cars on the road - three times the number currently in use worldwide.
尽管印度的人口增长速度比中国快，但是这不足以抵消两国在人均排放量上的巨大差距。根据一些估计数据，两国在2035年人口数量都将达到14.9亿。不过中国的二氧化碳排放将比印度的六倍还多。十五年后，当印度比中国人口多1.91亿时，中国仍将比印度多排放100亿公吨二氧化碳。这个差距相当于19亿量汽车上路，是全世界现有数量的三倍。
Of course, there's more to environmental health than carbon dioxide. Pollution plagues many Indian and Chinese cities, but again, China appears to have it worse. According to a 2007 study by the Blacksmith Institute, an environmental research organization, China is home to six of the world's 30 most polluted cities, while four are in India.
当然，除了二氧化碳排放更多的是环境卫生问题。污染折磨着中国和印度的很多城市，但是，中国似乎更加严重。根据2007年环境研究机构Blacksmith研究所的一项研究，世界30个污染最严重的城市中中国占了6个，印度只有4个。
Linfen has become the poster child for polluted Chinese cities, a blighted industrial burg that suggests a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Unregulated coal mines, steel factories and refineries have left half of the town's well water unsafe to drink, and cancer rates are way above average.
临汾是中国污染城市的典型，这个被毁灭的工业城市预示着一种后启示录式的噩梦。不规范的煤矿、钢厂和精炼厂让这个城镇一半的井水不能安全饮用，癌症发病率也远远高于平均水平。
India, though not at China's levels of air pollution, still has little to brag about. The number of cars in India increases by 20 percent every year, and its government set fuel-economy standards for the first time this year.
印度虽然在空气污染上没到中国那种程度，但也没什么值得吹嘘的。印度的汽车数量每年增长20%，印度政府今年首次设定油耗标准。
Yet, despite its surging environmental exploitation, China may be better poised than India to address pollution and climate change.
尽管中国环境破坏激增，中国在处理污染和气候变化上比印度要泰然自若多了。
Authoritarian governments can really get things done when they want to. Take the Olympics. The government relocated nearly 15,000 residents, some allegedly without their consent, just to build a few sports venues. India, with its raucous democracy and robust access to the court system, struggled not to embarrass itself when hosting the considerably lower-profile Commonwealth Games.
独裁政府在他们想做的事情上确实能保证落实。以奥运会为例，中国政府迁移了近1万5千名居民，其中很多人声称此举未得到他们的同意，就是要建一些体育场馆。印度强势的民主和法律体系，让他在举办相当没水准的英联邦运动会时拼命表现地不那么窘迫。
So if the Chinese Communist Party ever decides the country is going to clean up its act environmentally, it's likely to happen. (The closest thing India has to an environmental dictator is its Supreme Court, which unilaterally capped the number of auto rickshaws in Delhi in 1997 and then forced them to switch to clean natural gas by 2002 to clear the capital's air.)
所以如果中国共产党决定了中国要进行环境大清理，它就会实践。（印度做过的最接近环境的独裁机构就是最高法院，1997年单方面取缔了新德里的黄包车，在2002年之前强制换成使用天然气的以改善首都的空气。）
China has also made massive investments in clean energy. The country increased its wind-power output more than 20-fold between 2003 and 2008 and plans to increase that by eightfold again by 2020. India just doesn't have the cash for initiatives like that. Its per-capita GDP is less than half of China's, and it is growing more slowly: 6.4 percent in 2009 compared with China's 8.7 percent.
中国在清洁能源方面进行了大量的投资。2003年到2008年间中国的风能输出增加了20倍，计划在2020年以前再增加8倍。印度只是没钱去主动发展这个。印度的人均GDP比中国人均GDP一半还低，增长速度还很缓慢，印度2009年增长6.4%，中国是8.7%。
Economists are closely watching the environmental policies of both rising powers, because they represent test cases of the controversial environmental Kuznets curve, which hypothesizes that environmental improvements in a country will occur after per-capita income increases.
经济学家都在紧密关注着这两个崛起大国的环境政策，因为他们是有争议的环境库兹涅茨曲线的代表测试案例。这个曲线假定一国的人均收入增加之后环境也会得到相应改善。
Early proponents of the theory in the 1990s argued that economic development is a prerequisite for responsible environmental stewardship. In the coming years, we'll find out whether the race for Asian economic supremacy is a race to the bottom or to the top for the environment.
90年代这个理论的早期支持者提出，经济发展是对环境治理负责的先决条件。在接下来的数年间，我们将看到亚洲经济霸权的竞争，到底是环境最佳的竞争还是环境垫底的竞争。 |
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发表于 2010-12-16 17:31
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