《卫报》气候编辑部 自唐纳德·特朗普出任美国总统以来，外界给他扣了无数顶大帽子，但或许最不寻常的一个是在上个月送达的——说他其实是个环保主义者。
The Guardian Climate Desk Of all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last month—that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.
加州州长加文·纽森认为，特朗普是环保运动的“最大礼物”，原因是美以对伊朗战争的后果“让世界意识到我们对石油独裁政权有多脆弱，对中东局势动荡有多脆弱，”纽森在纽约气候周期间表示。“这场战争彻底粉碎了关于能源安全的任何浪漫幻想，迫使人们换个思路。它正在加速对清洁能源和可再生能源的投资。” 如果特朗普算个“意外的环保主义者”，那也是在国际层面上。
Trump is the “greatest gift” to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran“He’s woken the world up to how vulnerable we are to petro-dictatorships, how vulnerable we are to disruptions in the Middle East,” Newsom told during Climate Week in New York. “This war has completely gutted any sort of romantic notions of energy security and it’s compelled folks to think differently. It’s accelerating investments and clean energy and renewables.”If Trump has been an accidental environmentalist, it’s been in the international sphere.
霍尔木兹海峡——全球五分之一的石油和天然气出口通常由此通过——虽已开始恢复通行，但自2月伊朗战争爆发以来一直频频受阻，导致全球化石燃料价格飙升。各国的反应是争相削减石油和天然气使用，转向太阳能、风能等更清洁的能源形式（尽管煤炭——最脏的化石燃料——使用量也略有上升）。
The Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas exports usually flow, is now starting to open up but has been routinely snarled since the Iran War began in February, causing the cost of these fossil fuels to soar around the world Countries reacted by scrambling to cut their oil and gas use while turning to cleaner forms of energy such as solar and wind (although there’s also been a small rise in coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels).
总体后果对共同气候是积极的，据估计，由于这场危机，全球化石燃料排放量今年将下降0.5%。根据国际能源署的数据，石油消费峰值的到来可能已提前至今年，而非此前预估的2029年。
The overall consequence has been a positive one for our shared climate, with global fossil fuel emissions set to drop by 0.5 percent this year due to the crisis, has estimated The peak in oil consumption may have been sped up enough to arrive this year, rather than the previous estimate of 2029, according to the International Energy Agency.
特朗普发动贸易战，将实现气候倡导者只敢梦想、且仅在全球经济崩溃或新冠疫情期间才出现过的事情——导致过热星球的温室气体排放量实现年度下降。与此同时，总统征收关税和进口外国牛肉，也可能最终损害美国养牛业，后者是温室气体排放的另一主要来源。
By launching the war, Trump is set to achieve something only dreamed about by climate advocates and not seen outside global economic crashes or the Covid pandemic—an annual reduction in the emissions that are overheating our planet. The president’s imposition of tariffs and importation of foreign ground beef, meanwhile, may also end up hurting the US cattle industry, another major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
“所有生产出来的石油都会被燃烧……那些预测[温室气体排放]会减少的人，要么在撒谎，要么是瞎子。”
“All of the oil that is produced will be burned… The people who predict that there will be a reduction in [greenhouse emissions] are simply lying or blind.”
“这是一句奇怪的话，但我相信，”纽森谈到特朗普这位“无心之环保主义者”时说道。纽森是民主党总统提名的潜在竞争者。“这一时刻将标志着我们无法回到原状。”然而，将特朗普视为环保主义者——哪怕是意外的——这一想法仍显荒诞。他的政府废除了汽车、卡车和发电厂的污染限制，向化石燃料行业输送纳税人的钱，并着手单方面取消可再生能源项目。
“It’s a curious thing to say, but I believe it,” Newsom, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of Trump as a sort of unintentional biophile. “This moment will mark how we can’t go back to our original form.”Yet the idea of Trump as an environmentalist, even an accidental one, can still appear faintly absurd. His administration has eviscerated pollution limits on cars, trucks power plants funnelled taxpayer cash favors to the fossil fuel industry, and set about unilaterally cancelling renewable energy projects.
特朗普据可得证据从未穿着弗洛舍姆皮鞋踏足美国任何一座国家公园，他称环保主义者为“恐怖分子”，将气候危机称为“骗局”，并大幅削减保护规则，以至于只要不是蓄意可证，现在就可以杀害受保护物种。
Trump, who has never by available evidence ever set a Florsheimed foot in any of the US’s national parks, has called environmentalists “terrorists,” the climate crisis “a hoax,” and has slashed conservation rules to the extent you can now kill a protected species as long as it wasn’t provably intentional.
颇具意味的是，在2024年竞选期间被问及自己的环保政绩时，特朗普提到自己位于佛罗里达州的高尔夫球场因“建设方式、水资源利用方式以及沙土与水的混合处理”而屡获奖项。批评者指出，这一“政绩”完全掩盖了其他国家的清洁能源发展成果——这些国家因油价数月来一直维持在每桶100美元左右而深受困扰，不过在旷日持久的伊朗冲突结束后，油价理应会大幅回落。届时，各国放弃化石燃料的动力可能也会随之减弱。
Perhaps tellingly, when asked during the 2024 election campaign about his environmental credentials, Trump cited his Florida golf course getting awards for “the way I built it, for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water.”Critics say this record overshadows any embrace of clean energy by other countries spooked by an oil price that has hovered about $100 a barrel for months but should, at some point in the interminable Iran conflict, drop well below this. The impetus for quitting fossil fuels could wither when it does so.
“特朗普对伊朗的非法攻击或许能促使部分国家加速发展清洁能源，但他却严重削弱了美国的绿色技术发展，让美国倒退了几十年，”斯坦福大学气候科学家罗布·杰克逊说道。他认为纽森在描述特朗普时存在“目光短浅”的问题。“认为特朗普是‘意外的环保主义者’纯属一厢情愿。”
“Trump’s illegal attack on Iran may hasten clean energy in some countries, but he has gutted green tech in the United States and set us back decades,” said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University who said Newsom was guilty of “tunnel vision” in his framing of Trump. “The notion that he is an accidental environmentalist is wishful thinking.”
这场冲突虽然给石油和天然气行业带来了震荡，但也带来了丰厚收益：战争头三个月内，八家大型石油企业就净赚超过900亿美元。就连向来支持石油行业的特朗普也抱怨这些大型化石燃料企业“赚得太多”。不过目前尚无迹象表明这些石油巨头会担心这场“盛宴”结束后自己会走向没落。上个月，埃克森美孚预测称，尽管全球碳排放量会有所减少，但到2050年全球日均石油消耗量仍将达1.05亿桶，高于去年的1亿桶。
The conflict may have rocked the oil and gas industry but it has also enriched it, netting eight of the largest companies more than $90 billion in just the first three months of the war with even pro-oil Trump complaining that the major fossil fuel firms are “making too much money.”There is little sign Big Oil fears a looming obsolescence when this bonanza ends. Last month, Exxon forecast that while the world will reduce its emissions, it will still use 105 million barrels of oil a day in 2050, up from 100 million barrels last year.
据这家石油公司估算，到本世纪中叶，石油、天然气和煤炭仍将占据全球能源结构的三分之二。
Two-thirds of the global energy mix will stubbornly remain composed of oil, gas, and coal at the midpoint of the century, the oil company estimated.
“所有已经开采出来的石油都会被燃烧掉——如果他们开采更多，就会有更多石油被使用，”巴拿马环境部长胡安·卡洛斯·纳瓦罗说。“那些预测温室气体排放量会减少的人，无异于在撒谎或盲目。”纳瓦罗补充说，唯一的希望是，世界能够“把消费和生产控制在与目前相近的水平”。他还提到，人工智能数据中心的能源需求巨大，而这些数据中心在很大程度上依靠燃气发电运行。
“All of the oil that is produced will be burned—if they produce more, more will be used,” said Juan Carlos Navarro, environment minister of Panama. “The people who predict that there will be a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases are simply lying or blind.”The only hope is that the world “can cap consumption and production at levels similar to the ones we have right now,” Navarro added, citing the enormous energy demand of artificial intelligence datacenters, which are largely being run on gas-fired power.
不过，气候保护倡导者认为，伊朗冲突将进一步加速原本就正在兴起的清洁能源发展趋势。目前全球对可再生能源的投资额已是化石燃料投资的两倍；新增的电力几乎全部来自清洁能源。去年售出的汽车中，每四辆就有一辆是电动汽车。“我认为，这场危机结束后，全球对化石燃料的需求也不会再回到以往的水平。”
However, climate advocates maintain the Iran conflict will accelerate trends that are already swinging behind clean energy. Investment in renewables globally is now double that of fossil fuels, almost all new power being added to grids comes from clean sources and last year one in four cars sold was electric“I don’t think the world is just going to go back to business-as-usual demand of fossil fuels once this crisis ends.”
与以往的石油危机不同，如今世界已经有了可替代化石燃料的可靠选择，只是尚不清楚特朗普采取的军事与贸易举措能在多大程度上推动各国转向清洁能源。欧洲委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩在4月份表示：“所有这些事件都清楚地表明了一点：我们对化石燃料的过度依赖正在让我们付出高昂代价。”
Unlike previous oil shocks, the world now has a viable alternative to fossil fuels, even if it’s unclear how lasting an impact Trump’s military and trade actions will have in pushing countries towards them. “There is one thing that all these events are making clear,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission said in April. “We are paying a very high price for our over-dependency on fossil fuels.”
随着对化石燃料的依赖成本不断攀升，从英国到印度、泰国等国都在努力加快向可再生能源的转型步伐，从而节省巨额开支。电动汽车销量也大幅上升，不过在美国情况有所不同。特朗普曾敦促其他国家不要轻信清洁能源这一“骗局”，但近年来风电、太阳能及电池的成本大幅下降，使得这些清洁能源越来越受到市场青睐，即便在美国也是如此。
Countries from the UK to India to Thailand have sought to speed up the transition to renewables as the price of fossil fuel dependency has spiraled, saving billions Electric vehicle sales have surged, although not in the US Trump has urged other countries to reject the “scam” of clean energy but the market is increasingly favoring cheap wind, solar and batteries that have plummeted in cost in recent years, including in the US“Demand has massively spiked for solar and for battery storage,” said Sonia Dunlop, chief executive of the Global Solar Council“We’re seeing that all over the world—the Philippines, across Europe, across south-east Asia, Australia and beyond.”
“对太阳能及电池储能的需求出现了激增，”全球太阳能理事会首席执行官索尼娅·邓洛普说道，“我们在世界各地都看到了这一现象——菲律宾、欧洲各国、东南亚、澳大利亚乃至更多地区。”她补充道：“这场实际上由特朗普总统引发的伊朗危机，确实促使市场对我们的技术需求大幅增加……不过这其实只是延续了原本就存在的发展趋势而已。”
“This Iran crisis, which was, in effect, started by President Trump, has led to a massive surge in demand for our technology…but actually it’s just building on a trend that was already there,” she added.
政治界与商界领袖们不妨思考这样一个事实：风不会只吹过霍尔木兹海峡，阳光也不会只照耀在某个外国独裁者的领土上。伊朗战争或许不会对化石燃料产业造成致命打击，但它确实凸显了该行业的固有不稳定性。
Political and business leaders can mull the fact that the wind does not funnel through the strait of Hormuz and the sun doesn’t only shine on a foreign autocrat’s lands. The Iran war may not prove a fatal blow to fossil fuels, but it has starkly highlighted their inherent volatility.
在发展中国家，可再生能源的优势也日益显现。如今，越来越多的屋顶上安装了价格低廉的中国产太阳能板，有效缓解了电价飞涨带来的压力。
The case for renewables has become obvious at a grassroots level in developing countries too, where rooftops increasingly glitter with cheap Chinese-made solar panels that are helping negate soaring power bills.
“太阳能价格下降速度之快令人惊叹——如今非洲每天都有10万块太阳能板被安装使用，”美国前副总统阿尔·戈尔上个月说道，“在巴基斯坦的部分地区，如今新娘的嫁妆往往就是三块太阳能板和一台逆变器，而非10到12只山羊。这一趋势正在加速发展。”
“The price of solar has come down so quickly that there are now 100,000 solar panels installed every day in Africa,” Al Gore, the former US vice-president, said last month. “In parts of Pakistan, a common bride’s dowry is now three panels and an inverter, instead of 10 or 12 goats. It’s beginning to kick into gear.”
邓洛普强调，即便波斯湾地区的冲突平息，这一发展势头也不会止步。“我认为危机结束后，全球对化石燃料的需求也不会再回到以往水平，”她说，“一旦人们决定脱离对化石燃料的依赖，就再也不会回头了。”
This momentum won’t stop once the conflict around the Persian Gulf ends, Dunlop insisted. “I don’t think the world is just going to go back to business-as-usual demand of fossil fuels once this crisis ends,” she said. “Once someone decides to step off the fossil fuel rollercoaster, they’re off it.”
那么，这一切是否意味着特朗普算得上环保主义者呢？“我可不这么认为，”邓洛普谨慎回应道，“他当然有自己的一套主张。”
So does all this, then, make Trump an environmentalist? “I wouldn’t say that,” Dunlop demurred. “He certainly has his own ideas.”