I am so glad that the world is finally getting together to try to stop climate change. When I first heard that our leaders were meeting to talk about solutions, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Didn’t you?
Then I said, wait a minute. What exactly are they planning to do about this problem? So I looked into it. And I gotta tell you, not all the solutions they’re working on are what I’d call solutions. In fact, the leading solution, known as cap and trade - or emissions trading - is actually a huge problem.
然後我說，等一下，他們到底打算怎麼處理這個問題？於是我做了點調查，然後我必須告訴你們，他們著手的解決方案，並不盡然我會稱之為解決方案。事實上，最主要的解決方式—稱為總量管制與交易制度（cap and trade），或者說排放量交易制度—其實是個大問題。
Now I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but the future of our planet is at stake, so we gotta take the time to understand what’s going on here.
Okay, meet the guys at the heart of this so-called solution. They include the guys from Enron who designed energy trading, and the Wall Street financiers like Goldman Sachs who gave us the subprime mortgage crisis.
Their job is to develop brand new markets. They stake their claims and then when everyone and their grandmother wants in, they make off with huge amounts of money as the market becomes a giant bubble and then bursts.
Well their latest bubble just burst and now they’ve got a new idea for a market – trading carbon pollution.
他們上一個泡泡剛破掉，現在又有了市場的新點子：交易碳污染。
They’re about to develop a new $3 trillion bubble, but when this one bursts, it won’t just take down our stock portfolios, it could take down everything!
Well, pretty much all serious scientists agree that we need to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to 350 ppm if we want to avoid climate disaster. In the U.S., that means reducing our emission by 80% – maybe even more – by 2050. 80%!
Now the problem is that most of our global economy runs on burning fossil fuels, which releases carbon: the factories that make all our stuff, the ships and trucks that carry it around the world, our cars and buildings and appliances, just about everything.
So, how are we gonna reduce carbon 80% and not go back to living like Little House on the Prairie?
那麼我們該怎麼減少80%的碳，而又不需要回到以前住在草原小屋的生活呢？
Well, these Cap and Trade guys are saying that a new carbon stock market is the best way to get it done.
總量管制與交易制度提倡者說，全新的碳股票市場，是達到這個目的的最佳方式。
The first step would be getting governments around the world to agree to a yearly limit on carbon emissions. That’s the “cap”. I think that part’s great.
第一步就是讓世界各地的政府，對每年的碳排放量限額達成共識，這就是「總量管制」，我認為這想法非常棒。
So how do they want to insure that carbon emissions stay under this cap? Well, governments would distribute a certain amount of permits to pollute. Every year there would be fewer and fewer permits as we follow the cap to our goal.
Innovative companies will get on board building clean alternatives and getting more efficient. As permits get scarcer, they would also become more valuable, so naturally, companies who have extra will want to sell them to companies who still need them.
The logic is as long as we stay under the cap, it doesn’t matter who pollutes and who innovates. We’ll meet our climate deadline, avoiding catastrophe. And oh yeah, these guys take their fee as they broker this multi-trillion dollar carbon racket, I mean market.
Save the planet, get rich, what’s not to like, right? Some of my friends who really care about our future support cap and trade. A lot of environmental groups that I respect do too. They know it’s not a perfect solution and don’t love the idea of turning our planet’s future over to these guys, but they think that it is an important first step and that it’s better than nothing. I am not so sure.
In fact even the economists who invented the cap and trade system to deal with simpler problems like fertilizer pollution and sulfur dioxide, say cap and trade will never work for climate change. Here’s why I think they’re right.
When it comes to any kind of financial scam, like subprime mortgages or Bernie Madoff’ s pyramid scheme, the devil is always in the details. And there are a lot of devils in the details of the cap and trade proposals on the table.
Devil number one is known as Free Permits, which is why some people call this system Cap and Giveaway. In this scheme, industrial polluters will get the vast majority of these valuable permits for free. Free!
The more they’ve been polluting, the more they’ll get.
他們製造愈多的污染，就可以得到愈多的免費碳權。
It’ s like we’re thanking them for creating this problem in the first place.
這根本就像是我們在感謝他們製造出這些問題。
In Europe where they tried a Cap and Giveaway system, the value of the permits bounced around like crazy, energy costs jumped for consumers, and guess what?
Carbon emissions actually went up! The only part that did work was that the polluters made billions of dollars in extra profits. MIT economists say the same thing would likely happen here in the US.
Those billions come from OUR pockets. A real solution would put that money to work stopping climate change.
那數十億美元的金錢來自我們的口袋。而真正的解決方法，應該會把那些錢用在阻止氣候變遷上。
Instead of just giving permits away to polluters, we could sell them and use the money to: • build a clean energy economy • or give citizens a dividend to help pay for higher fuel prices while we transition to that clean energy economy • or share it with those who are most harmed by climate change. Some people call this paying our ecological debt.
Since we in the richest countries released the most carbon for centuries, and lived a pretty comfy lifestyle in the process, don’t we have a responsibility to help those most harmed?
It’s like we had a big party, didn’t invite our neighbors and then stuck ‘em with the clean up bill. It’s just not cool.
這就好比說我們舉辦一場大型派對，卻沒邀請我們的鄰居，然後再把收拾殘局的帳單丟給他們付。實在很不酷。
Did you know that in the next century, because of the changing climate, whole island nations could end up underwater and the UN says 9 out of 10 African farmers could lose their ability to grow food.
Wouldn’t a real solution benefit these people instead of just polluters?
真正的解決方法應該是要讓這些人受益，而不是污染者，不是嗎？
Devil number two is called Offsetting.
第二項駭人之處叫做抵減。
Offset permits are created when a company supposedly removes or reduces carbon. They then get a permit which can be sold to a polluter who wants permission to emit more carbon. In theory, one activity offsets the other.
Like, in Indonesia, Sinar Mas corporation cut down indigenous forests, causing major ecological and cultural destruction. Then, they took the wasteland they created and planted palm oil trees. Guess what they can get for it? Yup, offset permits.
Companies can even earn offsets for not doing anything at all.
甚至有公司可以什麼都不做，就獲得抵減。
Like, operators of a polluting factory can claim they were planning to expand 200% but reduced the plans to expand only 100%. For that meaningless claim, they get offset permits – permits that they can sell to someone else to make more pollution! That is so stupid!
The list of scams goes on and many of the worst ones happen in the so-called Third World where big business does whatever it wants, to whomever it wants. And with lax standards and regulations on offsets they can get permits for just about anything.
Devils one and two, Cap & Giveaway and Offsetting, make the system unfair and ineffective. But the last devil, which I call Distraction, makes it downright dangerous.
We’re not even close to a global agreement on a carbon cap to begin with, and duh, this is the whole point of cap and trade. But instead of hammering out a fair and strong deal, we’re putting the cart before the horse and rushing off to trade schemes and offsets.
With all the bogus offset projects, huge giveaways to polluters, and the failure to address the injustices of climate change, do you think the Third World will get on board with a global cap? I doubt it. If a cap and trade proposal is stopping us from actually capping carbon, it’s a dangerous distraction.
We don’t need to let these guys design the solution. We – us, our governments – we can make laws and do it ourselves.
我們不需要讓這些人來設計解決方案，我們…也就是我們的政府，我們可以制定法律，一切自己來。
In my country, we already have a law – the Clean Air Act – that confrms that carbon is a pollutant which our environmental agency is allowed to cap. So what are we waiting for? Go EPA go! Cap that carbon!
Instead, a U.S. cap and trade law proposed in 2009 guts the Clean Air Act, leaving it to the market to fix the problem. If a cap and trade proposal weakens our ability to make strong laws, it’s a distraction.
Concerned citizens around the world need to speak out and demand we redesign our economies away from fossil fuels. But cap and trade makes citizens think everything will be okay if we just drive a little less, change our light bulbs and let these guys do the rest. If cap and trade creates a false sense of progress, it’s a dangerous distraction.
These cap and trade proposals are mostly about protecting business as usual.
這些總量管制和交易制度的提案，絕大多數是在保護一如往常的作法。
Right now, the US subsidizes fossil fuels at more than twice the rate of renewables. What? We shouldn’t be subsidizing fossil fuels at all!
目前美國補助化石燃料的費率，是再生能源價格的兩倍。這是怎麼回事？我們根本不該補助化石燃料！
These guys don’t seem to realize that the simplest way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere is to leave it safely in the ground.
這些人似乎不瞭解，不要讓碳進入大氣層的最簡單方法，就是讓碳安全地待在地底下就好。
U.S. congressman, Rick Boucher, a well-known friend of the coal industry voted for cap and trade. He said it “strengthens the case for utilities to continue to use coal.”
No law that encourages coal use can stop climate change. Period.
鼓勵使用煤炭的法律，絕對無法阻止氣候變遷。這點毋庸置疑。
Solid caps, strong laws, citizen action, and carbon fees to pay off ecological debt and create a clean energy economy, that’s how we can save our future.
Next time someone tells you Cap and Trade is the best we’re gonna get, don’t believe them! Better yet, talk to them. They probably want a future safe from climate change too. Maybe they’ve just forgotten that you can only compromise to a point before a solution isn’t really a solution.
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