如果想一窥美国领导力退场后世界的命运，在人类努力应对最大挑战之际，请将目光投向土耳其安塔利亚。来自约200个国家的代表团正在此聚会，参加《联合国气候变化框架公约》第31次缔约方大会（COP31）。
If you want to glimpse the fate of our world after the abdication of American leadership, as humanity struggles to cope with its biggest problems, cast your eye toward Antalya, Turkey. This is where delegations from some 200 countries have gathered for COP31, the 31st conference of the United Nations treaty to slow down climate change.
你会在那里看到一些美国人走动，包括国会议员、州长、市长及其他州级政客。但连续第二年，你不会遇到唐纳德·特朗普总统政府的代表团。因为根本不存在这个代表团。
You’ll see some Americans walking around that conference, including congressmen, governors, mayors and other state politicians. But for the second year in a row, you won’t run into a delegation from the administration of President Donald Trump. Because there isn’t one.
特朗普不仅抵制这次会议，还抵制整个限制气候变化的全球努力。这是他第二次让美国退出2015年《巴黎协定》——该协定系《联合国气候变化框架公约》缔约方承诺将全球变暖幅度控制在比工业化前水平高出约1.5摄氏度以内的协议。他甚至让美国退出了该框架公约本身，该退出将于2月生效，这是任何其他国家从未采取过的步骤。
Trump is boycotting not only the conference but the entire global effort to limit climate change. For the second time, he has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement of 2015, the pact in which the parties of the UN framework convention pledged to cap global warming at about 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels. He’s even pulled the US out of that framework convention itself, an exit that takes effect in February and a step that no other country has ever taken.
历史上及累计而言，美国是最大的温室气体排放国，如今仅次于中国位居第二。该国领导人正在破坏人类清理美国帮助制造的烂摊子的努力。
The leader of the nation that is historically and cumulatively the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and nowadays the second-largest after China, is sabotaging humanity’s attempt to clean up the mess Americans have helped to make.
而这一努力似乎正在失败：9月，联合国环境规划署确认，“超越”《巴黎协定》设定的目标现在已是“不可避免”。这种集体失败在许多地方有许多成因。但特朗普是一个重要原因。
And that attempt does seem to be failing: In September, the UN Environment Program confirmed that “overshooting” the goals set at Paris is now “unavoidable.”That collective failure has many causes in many places. But Trump is a big one.
科学家称他过去22个月的政策是对清洁能源的“全方位进攻”。政府叫停或撤销了海上风电项目及其他增加可再生能源供给努力的资金。并取消了环境保护局（EPA）大片旨在限制车辆和发电厂排放的法规。核心意图是偏袒化石燃料行业。
Scientists call his policies for the past 22 months an “all-out assault” against clean energy. The administration has halted or defunded offshore wind projects and other efforts to get more energy from renewable sources. And it has eliminated swathes of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency that were meant to limit emissions from vehicles and power plants. The gist is to favor fossil-fuel industries.
由于美国体量巨大，这一政策大逆转将产生全球性影响。联合国10月发布的最新《排放差距报告》指出，在特朗普第二任期的第一年即2025年，美国排放量的增幅（1.33亿吨二氧化碳当量）“远超所有其他国家”。报告作者还量化了特朗普迄今政策的未来后果：根据预测，2030年美国排放量将比拜登政府时期现行政策下的预测值高出0.9亿吨二氧化碳当量（GtCO2e，即数十亿公吨二氧化碳或等量的其他温室气体）。作为对比，美国新增的排放量将相当于德国去年总排放量的1.4倍。
Because America is so huge, this policy U-turn makes a global difference. The UN’s latest “emissions gap report,” issued in October, finds that in 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, the increase of emissions in the US (of 133 megatons of CO2 equivalent) “far exceeded that of all other countries.”The authors also quantify the future consequences of Trump’s policies so far: American emissions projected for 2030 are now 0.9 gigatons of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) higher than projections based on policies in place during the administration of Joe Biden. (The unit means billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount in other greenhouse gases.) For comparison, America’s additional emissions will amount to 1.4 times the total emissions of Germany last year.
此外，由于特朗普已退出《联合国气候变化框架公约》和《巴黎协定》，报告作者假设他不会止步于此。作为退出的一部分，美国也废除了此前的减排目标。到2030年，这可能转化为每年额外1.7亿吨二氧化碳当量的排放（超过印度尼西亚、巴西或日本的全年总排放量），到2035年则可能达到2.2亿吨二氧化碳当量（接近俄罗斯的全年总排放量）。
Because Trump has pulled out of the framework convention and the Paris Agreement, moreover, the report’s authors assume that he isn’t done. As part of its exits, America has also scrapped its previous emissions targets. That could translate into an additional 1.7 GtCO2e a year by 2030 (more than an entire Indonesia, Brazil or Japan), and 2.2 GtCO2e by 2035 (almost a Russia).
当然，关键在于特朗普的政策可能导致的升温幅度。联合国目前预测，到本世纪末，全球气温将比前工业化时代高出 2.5 至 2.6 摄氏度（在《巴黎协定》签署时，这一增幅仍被视为灾难性情景）。这一估算比仅一年前高出 0.2 至 0.3 摄氏度。而这部分增幅中，约有一半归因于特朗普的政策。这些看似微小的增量具有误导性。
What matters is of course the increase in warming that Trump’s policies are likely to cause. The UN now projects that by the end of the century we will be 2.5 – 2.6° C warmer than we were in the pre-industrial era (an increase that at the time of the Paris Agreement was still considered a catastrophic scenario). That estimate is 0.2–0.3° C higher than it was only a year ago. And about half of that increase is due to Trump’s policies. These seemingly small increments are misleading.
天气（区别于气候）就像那两位谚语中的统计学家：一个冻死，一个热死，但平均起来他们舒舒服服地暖和。现实中，这些升温情景让试图对风暴、干旱、洪水、火灾等灾害进行建模的尝试彻底失效。我们能说的是，未来将比我们想象的更加动荡、怪异和极端。
Weather (as opposed to climate) is like the two proverbial statisticians: One freezes to death and the other burns to death, but on average they’re comfortably warm. In reality, these warming scenarios blow apart any attempts to model disasters such as storms, droughts, floods, fires and the rest. What we can say is that the future will be more volatile, weird and extreme than we imagined.
一个显著的讽刺是，特朗普的一项特定政策目前正导致一个非预期的、暂时的缓解波动：他对伊朗的战争导致霍尔木兹海峡关闭，全球石油和天然气使用受阻。随着各国燃烧这些化石燃料减少，排放也略有下降。但这不会持久。
A notable irony is that one particular Trump policy is currently causing an unintended and temporary blip of relief: His war against Iran has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a global disruption in oil and gas usage. As countries burn less of those fossil fuels, they’re also emitting a bit less. But that won’t last.
特朗普政策的另一个非预期后果是，让作为最大排放国的威权国家中国在对比下显得表率十足。中国仍在燃烧大量煤炭，但也在全力推动用电动汽车和卡车取代油耗大户，并用太阳能和风能为这些车辆供能。
Another unintended consequence of Trump’s policies is to make authoritarian China, the largest emitter, look exemplary in comparison. It’s still burning a lot of coal, but it also continues its full-bore push to replace gas-guzzlers with electric cars and trucks, and to feed those vehicles with energy from the sun and wind.
事情就在这里，后“美国治世”时代的世界：作为智人，我们仍在冲向灾难，而我们最后最好的希望是中国共产党。
And there you have it, the world after the Pax Americana: As Homo sapiens, we keep hurtling toward disaster, and our last best hope is the Chinese Communist Party.
最令人费解的或许是，气候变化这个话题突然变得不合时宜，尤其是在美国特朗普执政时期。民主党刚刚在全国范围内击败了总统，并将于1月控制国会两院。但为了获胜，他们被建议：“解决气候变化的第一条规则：别提气候变化。”如果他们打算将胜利转化为良政——我承认这是个老派的想法——他们就需要无视那条建议，不仅要说“气候变化”，还要开始采取行动解决它。
The most perplexing aspect may be the suddenness with which climate change has become unfashionable as a topic, especially in America under Trump. Democrats just repudiated the president across the country and will control both chambers of Congress come January. But to win, they were advised: “The First Rule About Solving Climate Change: Don’t Say Climate Change.”If they intend to turn their triumphs into good governance — an old-fashioned notion, I admit — they’ll need to ignore that advice, and not only say “climate change,” but start doing something about it.