祈福德 中国的环境危机与希望

After 20 years in Asia as a journalist, Mark Clifford took over as executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council in 2007. His new book, “The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency,” explores how Asian companies are making strides in providing environmental solutions. China is a special focus because of the country’s huge emissions of carbon, but also because of its potential for an interview, Mr. Clifford discussed the need to link businesses, governments and nongovernmental organizations to fight climate change:

在亚洲当了20多年记者之后，马克·祈福德(Mark Clifford)于2007年出任总部在香港的亚洲企业领袖协会(Asia Business Council)常务董事。他的新书《亚洲的环保：解决亚洲环境紧急状态的商业案例》(The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency)探讨亚洲企业如何在提供环保解决方案上大步迈进。本书特别关注了中国，不但因为中国的巨大碳排放量，而且也因为其创新的潜力。在一次采访中，祈福德讨论了在应对气候变化问题上，企业、政府和非政府组织互动的必要性：

Q. How did you get interested in this topic?

问：你是怎么对这个主题感兴趣的？

A. I joined the Council in 2007 and inherited an almost-finished study on green buildings. That was pretty exotic in Asia back then, and we published a book on it. It got me thinking about the topic.

答：我2007年到协会工作，接过来一个马上就要完成的绿色建筑研究项目。那时候，绿色建筑在亚洲还是相当新鲜的东西，我们出版了一部有关的书。这让我开始思考这个主题。

Q. Your angle is a bit more hopeful than some. Tell us how that came to be.

问：你的角度比有些人的更充满希望。请问你是怎么形成这种观念的。

A. Originally, I thought I’d do a book along the lines of “The East Is Black.” And we do have an emergency here. In China, 1.2 million a year are dying prematurely. People need to know how bad it is, but then I got to thinking that this was pretty obvious. Instead, I thought that there are these much more positive responses underway, and people should know about them. The business community, which takes challenges and solves problems, was involved. So it is unabashedly a glass-half-full book, but that’s because it’s important to know there’s a way out. We can despair, we can do nothing, or we can work to solve one of the greatest challenges of our time.

答：本来，我以为我会按照“东方黑”这个思路写本书。亚洲目前的确面临着环境的紧急状态。在中国，每年有120万人过早死亡。人们需要知道环境有多么糟糕，但后来我开始思考。环境糟糕是明摆着的。与之相反的是，我觉得有些正在采取的更积极的响应，人们应该了解这些东西。喜欢挑战和解决问题的商业圈子的人参与了进来。所以，这是一本不加掩饰地乐观的书，但这是因为知道有出路很重要。我们可以绝望，我们可以什么都不做，或者我们可以一起解决我们这个时代的一个最大挑战。

Q. Do you see business being the main player in solving the issue?

问：你看到企业在成为解决这个问题的主要力量了吗？

A. No, it’s part of the solution. There has to be a three-legged stool of government, civil society and business, and each has to bring its strengths to the table.

答：没有，企业能解决部分的问题。必须要有政府、公民社会和企业形成的三条腿的凳子，三方都需要拿出自己的长处。

Only governments have the power to set rules — the laws and regulations, of course, but also the prices in the forms of taxes and subsidies as well as facilitating infrastructure developments. Media and NGOs make sure that business and government are doing what they promise.

只有政府有制定规则、也就是法律法规的权力，政府还能以税收和补贴的形式、以及促进基础设施建设来影响价格。媒体和非政府组织能监督企业和政府，看看他们是否在做他们承诺的事情。

Q. What was most surprising is how many companies are doing this in one form or another.

问：最令人惊讶的是，有这么多的公司在以这种或那种形式在做这件事情。

A. Yes, in the book I profile more than a dozen companies at length but also have an appendix of more than 50 companies that are involved with a variety of environmental initiatives. It was surprising to me what’s going on at the corporate level, but they’re doing things for good business reasons. Some are for the P.R. effect, but most look at it as necessary for survival.

答：是的，我在书中详细介绍了十几家公司的情况，书里还有一个包括50多家公司的附录，这些公司都有某种形式的环保措施。企业层面正在发生的事情令我惊讶，但它们这样做有好的商业理由。有些是为了公关效果，但大多数企业认为这事关它们的生存。

Q. You focused one chapter on Hong Kong’s CLP Holdings, the electric power company.

问：你用了一章来集中介绍电力公司香港中电控股。

A. Their work really sparked this project. In 2007, the then-chief executive, Andrew Brandler, announced that by mid-century, they would cut the carbon intensity of their electricity production by 75 percent. This pledge by one of Asia’s biggest private utilities — mostly coal-fired power plants — to effectively decarbonize by mid-century is unparalleled globally. I think this stems from the Kadoorie family, which owns a major stake in CLP. Michael Kadoorie challenges his top management to look at 50-year horizons. They do this for good reasons. They’re traditionally a coal-burning utility, but they think that this isn’t a good business model in 50 years.

答：他们的工作真正让我开始写这本书。2007年，当时的首席执行官包立贤(Andrew Brandler)宣布，到本世纪中叶，公司将把他们电力生产的碳强度降低75％。这是亚洲最大的主要靠燃煤发电的私营电力公司之一，它做出在世纪中叶基本上实现去碳化的承诺在全球绝无仅有。我认为这源于拥有中电主要股份的嘉道理(Kadoorie)家族。米高·嘉道理(Michael Kadoorie)向他的高层管理人员提出挑战，要他们着眼未来的50年。他们这样做有好的理由。他们传统上是一个燃煤电力公司，但他们认为50年后这个商业模式行不通。

Other companies think that water is underpriced, and in the future, it will be more realistically priced. Carbon also is underpriced, and other companies want to be ready for when it’s changed.

还有的公司认为水的定价过低，在未来，水的价格将会更符合实际。碳的价格也过低，企业要做好其价格改变的准备。

But not all companies have long-term visions.

但是，并非所有的公司都有长远的视野。

To reach them, you need the other two legs of the stool. You need good, strong government policy, and you need NGOs to hold people accountable.

为了让那些公司也考虑环境问题，你需要凳子的另外两条腿。你需要好的、强有力的政府政策，而且你需要非政府组织来督促人们承担责任。

Q. What countries have had good policies?

问：哪些国家有好的政策？

A. Singapore has done an exemplary job. They decided very early on that water is of existential threat to the nation. So they have taken very firm policies, and it gives companies a form of certainty about costs.

答：新加坡做出了典范性的工作。他们很早就决定，水是威胁国家生死存亡的资源。所以，他们已经采取了非常坚定的政策，而且新加坡让公司对水的成本有一种确定性。

Not every country has the capacity that Singapore’s administration has, and it’s a small place with a forward-thinking government. It’s much harder in big countries like China and India, which are more fragmented.

不是每个国家都有新加坡政府的能力，那是有一个很小的地方，政府又很有前瞻性。在中国和印度这样的大国要难得多，问题更复杂。

Q. You have a lot on China.

问：书里有很多关于中国的部分。

A. The good news is we have good policies coming down from the top levels of the Chinese government. Where China continues to struggle is the implementation at the ground level. There’s not always enforcement, and there’s no civil society to act as a check. The time when China decides that the environment and energy issues are as much of a threat as the color revolutions were, or the Hong Kong protests were last year, that’s when we’ll know we have serious progress. We’ve seen with Chai Jing [whose popular documentary film on the environment, “Under the Dome,” was banned] that civil society is muted.

答：好消息是，我们有中国政府高层制定的很好的政策。中国需要不断解决的问题是政策在下级层面得到实施。中国的执法不总是很严，而且也没有公民社会来充当制衡。只有到了中国意识到环境和能源问题的威胁，与颜色革命（或者香港去年抗议）的威胁一样严重的时候，我们才会知道我们有了不可轻视的进展。我们从柴静事件已经看到，中国不让公民社会发声。（柴静深受欢迎的环境纪录片《穹顶之下》被禁。）

Q. We read a lot about air pollution, but you also think that water is crucial.

问：我们经常读到有关空气污染的报道，但你觉得水也至关重要。

A. Increasingly, water is a hard-stop issue. Air pollution is horrible, but most people affected by it are still living. But no one can live without water. I don’t know what people will do when the water stops. In China, projects like the South-North Water Diversion Project just delay the day of reckoning. What concerns me is that even most otherwise far-sighted governments are not facing up to the challenges.

答：水越来越多地成为一个存亡问题。空气污染很可怕，但受它影响的大多数人仍然活着。但是，没有水就没有人能活。我不知道水没了的时候，人们将怎么办。在中国，像南水北调这样的工程项目只能推迟算总帐的日子。我担心的是，即使在其他问题上有远见的政府也还没有直面这个挑战。

For example, what do you do if you’re a municipal official, and you have an industry, say semi-conductors, which uses a lot of water? What do you do when you have to make a choice: water for the factory or the town? These are the kinds of choices that aren’t going to happen today or tomorrow, but governments will face this.

比如，如果你是一个市政官员，你会怎么做？你管着一个行业，比如半导体，它需要大量的水。当你需要做出选择：水是给工厂、还是给城市的时候，你会怎么做？这种选择不会在今天或明天发生，但政府将面临这种选择。

Q. And yet there are signs of hope in China.

问：中国也还有希望的迹象？

A. China is about to overtake Germany as having the largest amount of installed solar power capability. It also has large wind turbine facilities. All of this is important because China burns half the world’s coal and accounts for 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. So to fix China, we need to cut coal use. Coal is supposed to peak in 2030, but it could happen a lot faster. So these are huge challenges, but China is potentially further ahead than many people realize.

答：中国即将超过德国，成为太阳能发电装机能力最大的国家。中国还有大量的风力发电机组设备。所有这一切都很重要，因为中国烧掉了世界上一半的煤，释放了世界上二氧化碳排放量的30％。因此，要解决中国的问题，就需要削减煤炭的使用。煤炭使用预计将在2030年达到峰值，但峰值可能会更快地达到。所以这些都是巨大的挑战，但中国可能迈出的步伐比许多人意识到的要更大。