环境保护越来越成为世界各国的关注点，对能源的合理开发、使用也正成为国际共识，保护环境，就是保护我们赖以生存的家园，种种因素中，能源成为至关重要的因素。
本期特别策划，请大家与我们共同关注未来！
Europe agrees to embrace nuclear option in battle to save the planet
By David Charter and Rory Watson
The role of nuclear power in Europe received an unexpected boost as EU leaders hailed a landmark climate change deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to renewable fuels.
Environmentalists complained that an ambitious headline goal to cut Europe’s CO emissions by a fifth by 2020 had been weakened by concessions to the main nuclear nations and the biggest polluters in Eastern Europe.
Nonetheless, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, will use the agreement struck at the spring EU summit in Brussels to put pressure on world leaders to follow suit when she hosts the G8 meeting in June.
China, India and Brazil will join that summit and, like the US, be challenged to accept the principle of binding CO cuts for the first time.
As well as agreeing in principle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, EU leaders pledged to ensure that 20 per cent of Europe’s energy will come from renewable sources by 2020. The commitment of all 27 member nations is legally enforceable by the European Court of Justice.
In a sop to France and the Czech Republic, a country’s nuclear power capability will be taken into account when calculating national commitments to renewable energy. France produces 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power stations and insisted that this “noncarbon” source of fuel should be taken into consideration. French diplomats believe this will lessen the EU demand for more renewable sources such as wave, wind and solar power.
Environmentalists were less enthusiastic. Friends of the Earth said the targets were timid. A spokesman said: “Heads of States gave a modest boost to the uptake of renewable energies, but agreed that the EU should aim low on cutting greenhouse gases, and failed again to agree any concrete commitment towards reducing Europe’s appalling waste of energy.”
Mr Blair and Mr Chirac were full of praise for the handling of the summit by Mrs Merkel, who faced strong opposition to her climate change ambitions from several nations, not least in eastern European countries such as Poland, which still rely heavily on fossil fuels.
But she was determined to give herself the best possible leverage on members of the G8 to persuade them to follow suit and prepare a postKyoto global framework for cutting harmful emissions.
Key to any new global deal will be the United States, where Congress refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, but also China, India and Brazil, which were all excused Kyoto targets because they were classed as developing nations in the 1990s.
The EU deal allows Mrs Merkel to challenge other global players to match the EU’s commitment—with the extra pledge that Europe will go further and cut emissions by up to 30 per cent if others are prepared to follow suit.
拯救地球之战，欧洲接受核能
欧盟领导人日前达成一项决议，旨在减少温室气体排放量并且使用更多的可更新资源。当他们为此项里程碑式的事件而欢欣鼓舞时，核能源在欧洲的地位也有了意想不到的提高。
环境保护主义者抱怨说这个雄心勃勃的，在2020年之前削减欧洲总体1/5的温室气体排放量的头条计划，已经在对几个主要的核国家和东欧污染最为严重地区的一再让步中不断被削弱。
然而，德国总理安格拉·麦克尔，将用在布鲁塞尔举行的春季欧盟峰会上达成的协议向世界其他领导人施压，促使他们赞成其6月主持召开的八国峰会上的决策。
中国、印度和巴西将参加此次峰会并且同美国一起，首次被敦促接受削减温室气体的原则。
欧盟领导人不仅要接受这些原则，同时要承诺确保2020年之前，欧洲20％的能源将来自可更新资源。所有27个成员国达成的协议依法可由欧洲司法法院强制执行。
作为对法国和捷克共和国的抚慰性措施，在估测一国可更新能源的投入量时，核能将被计算在内。法国80％的电力来自核电，它坚持说这种“无碳”的燃料资源应当被予以考虑。法国外交人员们则相信核能的使用将减少欧盟对于其他可更新资源，如潮汐能、风能和太阳能的需求。
环保主义者们对此可不那么满怀热情。“地球之友”协会说这些目标让人缺乏信心。一位发言人指出：“各国首脑只将可更新资源的利用推进了一小步，但是又允许欧盟降低削减温室气体排放量的目标，并且在具体如何减少欧洲惊人的能源浪费问题上毫无进展。”
布莱尔和希拉克都对麦克尔在峰会期间的主持工作大加赞赏。麦克尔“改变气候”的宏伟蓝图受到重重压力，面临着不仅仅是东欧一些主要依靠矿物燃料的国家如波兰的反对。
但是她下定决心在八国峰会上为自己找到最佳的平衡点，极力说服各国遵循计划，并为构建起一个仅次于京都议定书的削减有害气体活动的全球框架做准备。
美国、中国、印度和巴西在任何新的国际条约中都起到关键作用，而美国国会拒绝签署京都议定书，中、印、巴三国又被排除在外，因为20世纪90年代它们被归为发展中国家行列。
欧盟的决议允许麦克尔敦促全球其他伙伴配合欧盟的计划——当然，如果其他国家愿意执行决策的话，欧洲将会超额将其温室气体的排放量减少30%。
If only talk was a renewable energy source
Angela Merkel’s Chancellery in Berlin is said to run entirely on renewable energy. That is more than can be said for 10 Downing Street, or for Germany and Britain as a whole. They will have to do a great deal better over the next 13 years to have a prayer of meeting what No 10’s current occupant called, with some understatement, the “ground-breaking, bold, ambitious” energy and emissions targets agreed in Brussels.
By 2020 carbon emissions from the world’s largest trading bloc are to be cut by a fifth, compared with 1990 levels. The proportion of the EU’s power generated from renewable sources is to rise to a fifth, and biomass must account for 10 per cent of all transport fuel. These are grand goals to declare; Herculean to accomplish. Mrs Merkel’s achievement in forging an EU climate change agreement should not be underestimated. She has, after all, persuaded Austria, which produces nearly 60 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, and Estonia (1.1 per cent) to sign the same document. But she did so by effectively allowing nuclear power to be categorised as “noncarbon”, and by assuring the union’s poorer eastern members that they would shoulder a lighter burden than richer western countries. The arm-twisting on “differentiated national overall targets” starts now. But this much is already clear: big economies still heavily dependent on fossil fuels—like the UK—will have to change most.
Renewable energy companies have hailed yesterday’s deal almost as enthusiastically as did Mr Blair. In fact, its clearest winners are nuclear energy and the countries that depend on it most heavily, namely France and Finland.
Nuclear power is not renewable (global uranium supplies are finite) nor noncarbon (uranium mining is a carbon-intensive industry), but it is vastly cleaner than oil, gas or coal. It is, therefore, right that nuclear capacity be taken into account in setting national renewable energy targets, however much this may look like a victory for special pleading by President Chirac. And Mr Blair will be right to reiterate his belief in an expanded role for nuclear energy in Britain when the climate change White Paper is published next week.
How to set different national emissions targets depending on “different national starting points” is much less clear. Western Europe may have broken the historic link between growth and energy consumption, but the EU’s newest members have not. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic remain heavily dependent on coal and gas for power, and on carbon-intensive manufacturing for growth. If they are to leapfrog the energy extravagance that built the most advanced economies, it will only be with significant subsidies in the form of low-carbon technology or cross-border power supplies. Whether “rich” Europe will pay this price remains to be seen.
The EU summit did not discuss the science of climate change, but the scientific debate, rightly, goes on. Serious questions remain about why temperatures fell as carbon emissions rose after the war, and whether changes in carbon levels precede or follow temperature fluctuations over the long term. Scientists who raise these questions should not be demonised. Flaws in climate change models, if not explained, will only embolden emerging economies to abandon the greenhouse gas consensus and use relatively cheap, convenient fossil fuels to power the development that their impoverished billions desperately need. Finding true consensus on climate change within Europe will be hard. In the looming energy showdown with China, India, Africa and Brazil, it will be far harder.
如果辩论是可再生性能源该有多好
据安格拉·麦克尔驻柏林的办事处声称，要完全采用可再生性能源。这对于唐宁街10号（英国首相官邸），或整个德国和英国来说，都不仅仅是嘴上说说而已的事情。在布鲁塞尔达成了一项10号现有住户（现任英国首相）保守地称之为“惊天动地的、大胆的、宏伟的”能源与放射性物质目标计划，他们不得不在接下来的13年里做更多的事情来祈祷这个计划的实现。
到2020年，世界最大的贸易集团将比1990年减少20%的碳排放量，欧盟由可再生性能源产生的能量比例将上升20%，而生物量必须达到总运输燃料的10%。这都是些有待声明的重大目标，难以完成。麦克尔女士推进欧盟气候变化协议的成就不可低估。毕竟，她成功地劝说奥地利和爱沙尼亚签署了同一份文件，而前者利用可再生性能源产生将近60%的电能，后者则仅为1.1%。但是她通过将核能归入“非碳型”能源的种类里来成就上述做法，并向联盟中位处东部的一些贫困国家保证他们将承担比西方富有国家轻松点儿的负担。自此“有差别全民目标”的压力开始了。但这已经相当明显：大型工业依然非常依赖煤矿资源——比如英国——他们不得不做出很大的改变。
可再生型能源公司也如布莱尔先生一样热情洋溢地赞许了昨天的计划。事实上，最明显的赢家是核能以及那些非常依赖它的国家——法国和芬兰。
核能既非可再生性的（全球的铀供应量有限），又不是非碳型的（铀开采是一种碳密集工业），但它比石油、煤气或煤都要清洁得多。因此，核能被纳入到国家可再生性能源计划当中是正确之举，不管这看起来也许像是希拉克总统特别辩论的胜利。而在下周刊登的“气候变化白皮书”中，布莱尔先生准备为英国的核能重申他的观点。
如何执行这些建立在“不同观点”基础上的全国性放射能源计划则非常不明朗。西欧或许已经打破了经济增长与能源消耗之间的历史性连线，但刚加入欧盟的新成员则没有。波兰、匈牙利、捷克共和国，依旧保持着对煤和石油的高度依赖，通过碳密集型生产获得经济增长。如果他们打算跳过那种成就了最先进经济的能源浪费，那只有通过以低碳技术或边缘能源供应的形式来提供重要补助达到实现计划的目的。“富裕的”欧洲为此能否付得起这笔费用仍有待观望。
欧盟的最高阶层并未讨论有关气候变化的科学，但科学辩论却正在进行。为什么战后随着碳排放量的增加气温却在下降，长期以来碳的含量水平占优还是随着温度波动而上下变化，诸如此类的严重问题依然存在。提出这些问题的科学家不应该为此着魔。如果不解释的话，气候变化模式中的瑕疵只会鼓励新兴工业放纵温室气体的排放，并使用相对廉价、便利的煤矿来加强它们穷困的人民所竭力需要的发展。在欧洲范围内寻找气候变化的真正的一致看法会很艰难。而与中国、印度、非洲大陆和巴西的濒危能源对决将更加艰难。
All change for the humble lightbulb
By David Charter
Traditional light bulbs are to be phased out across Europe because they waste too much energy.
The filament bulb, which dates back to the 1880s, will start to disappear from stores within two years to reduce energy consumption.
Consumers will find that the cost of low-energy bulbs starts to fall as new EU directives force manufacturers to produce them in greater numbers.
“We expect that legally binding eco-standards will be set for energy efficiency and therefore gradually you would only be able to buy those lightbulbs that meet the target. So effectively it would phase out the inefficient ones,” the official said.
The measure was agreed after the Australian government decided to ban wasteful filament bulbs from 2010. That led Sigmar Gabriel, the German Environment Minister, to urge the EU summit to come up with a similar plan. Rejecting an outright ban, Chancellor Angela Merkel included plans to push “increased energy efficiency requirements” on office and street-lighting by 2008 and in private households by 2009.
Mrs Merkel said: “We need to give people a little time to change. We are not saying they should throw out all bulbs in their house today, but everybody should start thinking about what is in the shops.” She said that most of her bulbs were energy-saving, but admitted to sharing a common complaint: “They are not quite bright enough, so when I am looking for something that has dropped on the carpet I have a bit of a problem.”
While low-energy bulbs are more expensive, they are already said to be more cost-effective because of the greater lifetime of the bulb.
The Department of Environment said that consumers could reduce home lighting costs by ￡9 a year by switching all their bulbs. She added that if each British household replaced three traditional bulbs with energy-efficient ones, it would stop as much CO2 emissions as produced by all of the country’s street-lighting.
Yes, you can still have pretty lights.
—Stores from Woolworths to Ikea stock low-energy bulbs.
—At up to ￡3.50 they cost more than other bulbs but use four times less energy to generate the same amount of light.
—Each bulb can save up to ￡100 on electricity bills in a bulb’s lifetime.
传统灯泡即将淘汰
因为浪费太多能源，传统灯泡将从欧洲全部被淘汰。
带有灯丝的传统灯泡,其历史可以追溯到19世纪80年代。这些灯泡将在未来两年内从商店内消失以减少能源消耗。
消费者会发现，从今年秋天开始，新欧盟将指定更多的工厂生产节能环保灯泡。
“我们期待在有效控制能源效率方面，国家将会有更规范的法律条款和环保标准。这样，消费者只能购买那些达到标准的节能灯泡。那些低效、损耗大的传统灯泡会很快地从市场中被淘汰。”一位官员如此说道。
澳洲政府近日批准并颁布一项新措施，从2010年，禁止使用含灯丝灯泡。德国环境部长加布里埃尔，督促欧盟首脑提出一个类似的计划。安格拉·麦克尔总理拒绝完全禁制方案，计划于2008年前在政府办公场所和公共场所照明上，推行“增加能源高效使用要求”，在2009年前将这一方案推行到居民家庭。
麦克尔说:“我们需要给出一点时间,让人们去改变。我们并不是说要他们立即废弃掉家里所有的灯泡， 但大家都应该想想,商店里应该用什么样的照明设施？”她说,她使用的大多数都是节能灯泡， 但对此她存有一些质疑。“这些节能灯泡不太明亮, 所以当我在地毯上寻找那些丢失的物品时，确实有些困难。”
虽然节能灯泡价格相对更为昂贵, 但因为它们具备很强的使用寿命，所以很划算。
环境部发表宣言说,消费者换成节能灯泡后，每年可以减少照明费用9英镑。 发言人还补充说道，如果英国每个家庭中将三个传统灯泡换成节能灯泡所减少的二氧化碳排放量，等于英国全国所有公路照明设施所产生的二氧化碳排放量。
不错, 你依然能拥有明亮的光线！
——诸如沃尔沃斯、宜家股市之类的商店将全部使用节能灯泡。
——每个节能灯泡耗费比传统灯泡高3.50英镑，但产生同样光亮，它仅需原来1/4的能源。
——每个节能灯泡在它使用寿命下，可节省电费高达1000英镑。