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论坛地址：http://www.ltaaa.com/bbs/thread-465115-1-1.htmlThe European Union is moving to enact adirective to double Europe’s current renewable energy by 2030. This isadmirable, but a critical flaw in the present version would accelerate climate change, allowing countries, power plants and factories to claim that cutting down trees and burning them for energy fully qualifies as renewable energy.
欧盟正在着手制定一道行政指令，使得到2030时欧洲的可再生能源数量比当前翻一番。这固然令人钦佩，但目前的政策有一个会加速气候变化的严重缺陷，即允许国家，发电厂和工厂为了发电而砍伐树木，只要他们宣称所发的电完全符合可再生能源。
Even a small part of Europe’s energy requires a large quantity of trees and to avoid profound harm to the climate and forests worldwide the European council and parliament must fix this flaw.
即使需要砍伐大量树木生产的能源只占欧洲能源总量的一小部分，为了避免对全球气候和森林造成长远的危害，欧洲理事会和议会也必须解决这个问题。
European producers of wood products have for decades generated electricity and heat as beneficial by-products, using wood wastes and limited forest residues. Most of this material would decompose and release carbon dioxide in a few years anyway, so using them to displacefossil fuels can reduce the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere in a fewyears too.
几十年来，欧洲的木制品生产商利用木材废物和有限的森林残留物，来生产电能和热能，从而将其作为有益的副产品。本来这些材料中的大多数就会在几年之内分解并释放二氧化碳，所以用它来取代化石燃料可以减少几年内排放到大气中的二氧化碳。
Unfortunately, the directive moving throughparliament would go beyond wastes and residues and credit countries and companies for cutting down additional trees simply to burn them for energy. Todo so has fundamentally different consequences because the carbon released intothe air would otherwise stay locked up in forests.
不幸的是，由议会颁布的这项指令，使得发电的材料不再仅限于使用废物和残留物，与此同时它还称颂国家和公司为了发电而砍伐更多的树。这样做的后果和之前有着根本性的不同，因为这些释放到空气中的碳原本是应该被锁在森林里的。
The reasoning seems to be that so long asforests re-grow, they will eventually reabsorb the carbon released. Yet eventhen, the net effect – as many studies have shown – will typically be to increase global warming for decades to centuries, even when wood replaces coal,oil or natural gas.
理由看起来很有道理，只要森林重新生长起来，他们最终将重新吸收释放的碳。但即使如此，正如许多研究所表明的那样，这样做的实际结果是引发小到数十年，大到数百年的全球变暖，即便用木材来取代煤炭，石油或天然气。
The reasons begin with the inherent inefficiencies in harvesting wood. Typically, around one third or more of eachtree is contained in roots and small branches that are properly left in theforest to protect soils, and most of which decompose, emitting carbon. The wood that is burned releases even more carbon than coal per unit of energy generated, and burns at a lower temperature, producing less electricity –turning wood into compressed pellets increases efficiency but uses energy andcreates large additional emissions.
其原因始于木材采伐固有的低效率。通常情况下，每棵树有三分之一或更多的部分是树根和小树枝中，这些树枝恰好留在森林中以保护土壤，其中的大部分树枝会分解释放碳元素。当生产相同单位的能量时，燃烧的木材比起煤会释放更多的碳，而且木材燃烧时的温度更低，产生的电力更少 - 将木材转化为压缩颗粒可以增加木材利用率，但是这会耗费能源并产生大量额外的排放。
A power plant burning wood chips willtypically emit one and a half times the carbon dioxide of a plant burning coaland at least three times the carbon dioxide emitted by a power plant burning natural gas.
木柴火力发电厂的二氧化碳排放量是煤炭火力发电厂的1.5倍，是天然气火力发电厂二氧化碳排放量的至少三倍。
Although regrowing trees absorb carbon,trees grow slowly, and for some years a regrowing forest absorbs less carbonthan if the forest were left unharvested.
尽管重新生长出来的树木会吸收碳，但是树木生长缓慢，并且长期以来，重新生长的树木相比没有被砍伐的森林吸收的碳更少。
Eventually, the new forest grows faster andthe carbon it absorbs, plus the reduction in fossil fuels, can pay back the“carbon debt”, but that takes decades to centuries, depending on the forest type and use. We conservatively estimate that using deliberately harvested woodinstead of fossil fuels will release at least twice as much carbon dioxide tothe air by 2050 per kilowatt hour. Doing so turns a potential reduction inemissions from solar or wind into a large increase.
最终，新的森林增长得更快，碳的吸收，加上化石燃料的减少，可以偿还“碳债”，但这需要几十年甚至几百年，这取决于森林的类型和用途。我们保守地估计，到2050年每千瓦时，使用故意采伐的木材代替化石燃料将会使空气中的二氧化碳排放量至少增加一倍。这样做可以使太阳能或风能的排放量大幅度减少。
Time matters. Placing an additional carbonload in the atmosphere for decades means permanent damage due to more rapidmelting of permafrost and glaciers, and more packing of heat and acidity intothe world’s oceans. At a critical moment when countries need to be “buyingtime” against climate change, this approach amounts to selling the world’slimited time to combat climate change under mistaken claims of improvement.
时间很紧迫。数十年来增加到大气中的碳负荷将会造成永久的损害，这是因为永久性冻土和冰川将会加速消亡，热量和酸性物质也将更多地进入全球的海洋。各国现在正处于“应对气候变化的时间”的关键时刻，依照政府要求采取的这种做法只会适得其反，相当于是变卖了我们应对气候变化的宝贵时间。
The effect on the world’s forests, carbonand biodiversity is likely to be large because even though Europe is a largeproducer of wood, its harvest could only supply about 6% of its primary energy.For more than a decade, the increased use of biomass has been supplying roughlyhalf of Europe’s increase in renewable energy. To supply even one third of the additional renewable energy likely required by 2030, Europe would need to burnan amount of wood greater than its total harvest today. This would turn alikely 6% decrease in energy emissions by 2050 under the directive through solar and wind into at least a 6% increase.
这会对全球的森林，碳循环和生物多样性造成很大的影响，因为即使欧洲是木材大国，伐木供应的能源也只能占到欧洲主要能源的6％左右。十多年来，不断增加的生物能源一度占到了欧洲新增可再生能源总量的一半左右。为了供应到2030年时可能需要的额外可再生能源的三分之一，欧洲将需要燃烧大于今天总收获量的木材。原本通过使用风能和太阳能，到2050年可以降低6%能源排放量，但现在由于这道政令排放量将至少增长6％。
Europe’s own demand for wood would degrade forests around the world, but if other countries follow Europe’s example, theimpacts would be even more dangerous. Instead of encouraging Indonesia andBrazil to preserve their tropical forests – Europe’s present position – themessage of this directive is “cut your forests so long as someone burns themfor energy”. Once countries are invested in such efforts, fixing the error maybecome impossible. To supply just an additional 3% of global energy with wood,the world needs to double its commercial wood harvests at great costs to carbon and wildlife.
欧洲对木材的需求会减少世界各地的森林，但是如果其他国家效仿欧洲的话，情形就更加危急了。不再鼓励印度尼西亚和巴西保护热带雨林——欧洲目前的立场——这道政令所传达的信息是“只要有人需要烧木头发电，就尽管砍掉你的森林吧”。一旦国家往这个方向投入努力，再想纠正错误就几乎是不可能的了。为了用木材提供全球3％的额外能源，全世界需要以碳循环和野生动物为代价，砍掉两倍于目前所采伐的商业林。
Neither a requirement that forests bemanaged sustainably nor any other “safeguards” in the various working draftswould stop this. For example, the directive would ban wood if harvests undermined “the long-term productivity capacity of the forest”. Although thatsounds good, preserving the capacity of trees to grow back still leaves morecarbon in the air for at least decades. Restricting wood harvests to countrieswith net growing forests – another idea – would still take carbon that forestswould otherwise add to their storage and instead put it in the air without meaningfulglobal limits.
在各项工作草案中，无论是对森林进行可持续管理的要求，还是其他的“保障措施”，都不能阻止这些坏事发生。例如，如果采伐会损害“森林的长久生产能力”，该指令就会禁止这一采伐。虽然这听起来不错，但即使伐木后保留了森林自我复原的能力，也仍然会在大气中留下更多的碳长达数十年（译注：相比不砍）。将森林采伐局限在森林净生长的国家——另一个办法——依旧需要增加森林的碳储量，而不是不加限制地将二氧化碳排放到空气中。
The solution is to restrict eligible forest biomass to its traditional sources of residues and waste. Legislators willlikely be able to vote on such an amendment in the parliament’s plenary.
解决办法就是把允许使用的森林生物资源限制为传统的残留物和废物来源。立法者可能会在议会的全体会议上就这一修正案进行表决。
By 1850, the use of wood for bioenergyhelped drive the near deforestation of western Europe even at a time when Europeans consumed relatively little energy. Although coal helped to save theforests of Europe, the solution is not to go back to burning forests. Asscientists, we collectively have played key roles in the IPCC, in advising European governments, and in forest and climate research. We encourage European legislators and other policymakers to amend the present directive because thefate of much of the world’s forests is literally at stake.
在1850年，即使是在欧洲人消耗能源相对较少的时代，把木材当做生物能源也使得当时西欧的森林近乎毁灭。尽管当时煤炭的使用使得欧洲的森林得以保留，但解决（可再生能源供应问题）的办法并不是重新走烧伐森林的老路。作为科学家，我们在IPCC，欧洲政府咨询以及森林和气候研究方面扮演了重要的角色。我们呼吁欧洲的立法者和其他决策者修改现行的政令，因为实际上世界上大部分的森林都危在旦夕。
