经济学人官方译文 | 如何普及空调的好处，同时又不让地球升温
In praise of air-conditioning
空调赞歌
Rebirth of the cool
酷爽再生
How to spread the benefits of air-conditioning—without frying the planet
如何普及空调的好处，同时又不让地球升温
How to spread the benefits of air-conditioning—without frying the planet
WHAT is the single most effective way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? Go vegetarian? Replant the Amazon? Cycle to work? None of the above. The answer is: make air-conditioners radically better. On one calculation, replacing refrigerants that damage the atmosphere would reduce total greenhouse gases by the equivalent of 90bn tonnes of CO2by 2050. Making the units more energy-efficient could double that. By contrast, if half the world’s population were to give up meat, it would save 66bn tonnes of CO2. Replanting two-thirds of degraded tropical forests would save 61bn tonnes. A one-third increase in global bicycle journeys would save just 2.3bn tonnes.
要减少温室气体排放，单个最有效的方法是什么？都去吃素？恢复亚马逊的雨林？骑车上班？都不是。答案是：彻底改造空调。一项计算发现，到2050年，替换掉破坏大气层的制冷剂将能减少相当于900亿吨二氧化碳的温室气体。提高空调的能效还能让这个数字再翻一倍。相比之下，如果全球一半人口放弃吃肉，将能减少660亿吨二氧化碳排放；恢复三分之二已退化的热带雨林能减少610亿吨；全球骑车通勤的人数增加三分之一只能减少23亿吨。
Air-conditioning is one of the world’s great overlooked industries. Automobiles and air-conditioners were invented at roughly the same time, and both have had a huge impact on where people live and work. Unlike cars, though, air-conditioners have drawn little criticism for their social impact, emissions or energy efficiency. Most hot countries do not have rules to govern their energy use. There is not even a common English word for “coolth” (the opposite of warmth).
空调是世界上最受忽视的产业之一。汽车和空调差不多在同一时间发明，两者都对人们生活和工作的选址产生了巨大的影响。然而与汽车不同的是，空调在社会影响、排放或能源效率方面没有受过什么批评。大多数气候炎热的国家没有管理空调能耗的法规。英文中甚至没有一个和“warmth”相对，表示气温凉爽的常用词【译注：“coolth”一词极少被使用】。
Yet air-conditioning has done more than most things to benefit humankind. Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, called it “perhaps one of the signal inventions of history”. It has transformed productivity in the tropics and helped turn southern China into the workshop of the world. In Europe, its spread has pushed down heat-related deaths by a factor of ten since 2003, when 70,000 more people than usual, most of them elderly, died in a heatwave. For children, air-conditioned classrooms and dormitories are associated with better grades at school (seearticle).
然而，空调带给人类的好处比大多数发明都多。新加坡第一任总理李光耀称空调“可能是历史上最重要的发明之一”。它改变了热带地区的生产力，帮助华南成为世界工厂。在欧洲，自2003年以来，由于空调的普及，与高温相关的死亡人数减少到原来的十分之一。2003年的那次热浪造成的死亡人数比以往多七万，其中大部分是老人。对于儿童而言，他们成绩的提高与教室和宿舍安装空调相关。
Environmentalists who call air-conditioning “a luxury we cannot afford” have half a point, however. In the next ten years, as many air-conditioners will be installed around the world as were put in between 1902 (when air-conditioning was invented) and 2005. Until energy can be produced without carbon emissions, these extra machines will warm the world. At the moment, therefore, air-conditioners create a vicious cycle. The more the Earth warms, the more people need them. But the more there are, the warmer the world will be.
然而，将空调称为“我们负担不起的奢侈品”的环保主义者也有其道理。在接下来的十年中，全世界安装的空调数量将相当于1902年（发明空调的时候）至2005年之间安装的总数。除非我们生产的能源不再有碳排放，否则这些新增的机器将让地球变暖。因此，眼下空调造成了一个恶性循环。地球越暖，人们越需要空调，但是空调装得越多，地球就越暖。
Too cool for comfort
凉过头了
Cutting the impact of cooling requires three things (beyond turning up the thermostat to make rooms less Arctic). First, air-conditioners must become much more efficient. The most energy-efficient models on the market today consume only about one-third as much electricity as average ones. Minimum energy-performance standards need to be raised, or introduced in countries that lack them altogether, to push the average unit’s performance closer to the standard of the best.
要降低空调的影响需要做到三点（除了把冷气的温度调高些，别让房间冷得跟北极似的之外）。首先必须大幅提升空调的效率。目前市场上最节能的空调的能耗大约仅为普通空调的三分之一。需要提高最低能效标准，或者在完全没有这些标准的国家引入标准，以使普通空调的能效更接近最佳标准。
Next, manufacturers should stop using damaging refrigerants. One category of these, hydrofluorocarbons, is over 1,000 times worse than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. An international deal to phase out these pollutants, called the Kigali amendment, will come into force in 2019. Foot-draggers should ratify and implement it; America is one country that has not done so.
其次，制造商应该停止使用有害的制冷剂。其中一类是氢氟烃，它在大气中的捕热能力比二氧化碳高1000多倍。根据一项将于2019年生效的国际协议《基加利修正案》（Kigali amendment），这些污染物将逐步被淘汰。迟迟未通过该修正案的国家应该批准并实施它，美国是其中之一。
Last, more could be done to design offices, malls and even cities so they do not need as many air-conditioners in the first place. More buildings should be built with overhanging roofs or balconies for shade, or with natural ventilation. Simply painting roofs white can help keep temperatures down.
最后，可以在办公室、购物中心、甚至城市的设计上做更多尝试，让它们不需要那么多的空调。更多的建筑物应该建有悬挑屋顶或阳台用于遮阳，或者能自然通风。只要将屋顶涂成白色就有助于降温。
Better machines are necessary. But cooling as an overall system needs to be improved if air-conditioning is to fulfil its promise to make people healthier, wealthier and wiser, without too high an environmental cost. Providing indoor sanctuaries of air-conditioned comfort need not come at the expense of an overheating world.
我们需要更好的空调。但是，如果空调要实现让人们更健康、更富裕和更明智的承诺，而不带来过高的环境成本，那么整个制冷系统都需要改进。提供有空调的舒适的室内庇护所不必以世界变暖为代价。
本文所在刊物目录：经济学人精读 | 2018年8月25日刊目录
