China’s carbon dioxide emissions¹ are likely to peak by 2025 — and may even have done so already — according to a new paper that suggests the country’s economic slowdown and rapid adoption² of renewable energy mean previous projections³ of China’s emissions peak are far too pessimistic.

根据一项新的研究报告，中国的二氧化碳排放很可能在2025年之前达到峰值——甚至有可能已经见顶。该报告称，中国经济放缓以及快速采用可再生能源意味着，此前其排放峰值的预测过于悲观。

“The major problem with current models of China’s emissions is that most of them do not pay attention to change in the structure and growth of China’s economic output,” said Fergus Green of the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute, co-author with Lord Stern of the LSE paper to be published this week in the journal Climate Policy.

伦敦政治经济学院(LSE)格兰瑟姆研究所(Grantham Research Institute)的弗格斯•格林(Fergus Green)表示：“现有研究中国碳排放的模型的主要问题在于，它们大多数没有注意到中国的经济产出的结构和增长的变化。”这份报告由格林与斯特恩勋爵(Lord Stern)共同完成，将于本周发表在《气候政策》(Climate Policy)刊物上。

The study assumes that under a “high growth scenario⁴”, annual economic growth will be just 6 per cent rate for the coming decade — compared with an average of more than 10 per cent in the first decade of this century.

这项研究假设，在“高速增长的前景”下，未来10年中国年度经济增速将仅有6%——相比之下，本世纪头10年的年均增速超过了10%。

With the slowdown accompanied by a government-planned economic transition from carbon-intensive heavy industry to services, the authors expect this structural⁵ shift means a decline of at least 4 per cent in the country’s energy intensity⁶ over the next decade.

伴随中国政府推进经济转型，从碳密集型重工业转向服务业，中国出现了增长放缓。在此背景下，两位作者预期，这种结构性变化意味着中国的能源密集度在未来10年将下降至少4%。

They believe this means primary energy consumption growth will slow to only 1.8 per cent a year or less between now and 2025, compared with an annual rate of more than 8 per cent between 2000 and 2013.

他们认为，这意味着从现在到2025年，一次能源消费增速将放缓至1.8%或更低，相比之下，2000年至2013年期间的年增速超过了8%。

At the same time, China’s energy will increasingly come from non-fossil sources, the report says. The researchers believe the government‘s target to derive⁷ 15 per cent of primary energy from non-fossil sources by 2020 “is likely to be significantly beaten”.

与此同时，该报告称，中国的能源将越来越多地来自非化石来源。两位研究人员相信，中国政府的目标——到2020年非化石能源占一次能源比重达到15%——“很可能明显提前实现”。

The study is not the first to suggest carbon cuts are happening already. Last month the government released figures suggesting emissions from fossil fuels and cement had fallen in 2015, according to analysis from Greenpeace.

这份报告并非第一个预测中国碳排放下降的研究。根据绿色和平组织(Greenpeace)的分析，中国政府上月发布的数据似乎表明，2015年，来自化石燃料与水泥的碳排放已经出现下降。

Sector-specific targets for renewable energy generation are set as absolute outputs, rather than as shares of total energy consumption. This means coal could be squeezed out faster if total energy consumption is lower than expected. China’s energy planning agencies aim to produce 200-300 gigawatts of wind and 150 gigawatts of solar energy by 2020. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that coal consumption stayed flat in 2014, and the National Bureau of Statistics states production fell by 3.3 per cent last year.

可再生能源发电的行业目标被设定为绝对产出，而非作为总能耗的一部分。这意味着，如果总能耗低于预期，煤炭将会被更快地挤出能源结构。中国能源规划机构的目标是，到2020年，使风电产能达到200至300千兆瓦，太阳能发电达到150千兆瓦。据美国能源情报署(Energy Information Administration)估计，2014年中国煤炭消费量未出现增长，而中国国家统计局(NBS)的数据显示，去年中国的煤炭产量下降了3.3%。

There are risks on the path to lower emissions. Provincial⁸ governments may be tempted⁹ by the short-term growth boons¹⁰ of building new coal plants. Coal plant building accelerated in 2014-15 “despite already enormous amounts of excess capacity”, says the report.

中国减排的道路上也存在风险。省级政府可能会因贪图短期增长而建设新的燃煤电厂。该报告称，“虽然已经出现大量产能过剩”，但在2014至2015年燃煤电厂建设仍出现加速。

Whether such risks will be realised depends on the political clout¹¹ of the coal enterprises and local governments dependent on coal. Last week the government estimated that 1.3m coal workers could be laid off due to reforms to shut unprofitable mines.

此类风险会不会成真，取决于煤炭企业以及依赖煤炭的地方政府的政治影响力。上周，中国政府估计，关闭不赚钱煤矿的改革举措将导致130万煤炭工人下岗。

At its annual parliamentary session this weekend, China for the first time announced a cap on its projected energy consumption by 2020. It also set a new target of reducing energy intensity, or the amount of energy consumed per unit of gross dometic product, by 18 per cent in that period.

在周末召开的全国人大会议上，中国首次宣布2020年预期能源消耗上限。中国还设定了将能源密集度（即单位GDP的能耗量）在此期间降低18%的新目标。

Many climate change researchers believe China’s emissions are already far lower than official estimates. The country surpassed its targets for reducing emissions intensity over the past five years, thanks to the economic slowdown and massive construction of hydropower dams.

许多气候变化研究者认为，中国的碳排放量已经远低于官方估计。过去5年，得益于经济放缓以及大规模建设水电站，中国已超额完成削减碳排放强度的目标。

The world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter said last year its emissions would peak around 2030. It had previously¹² stood firm on not cutting its carbon emissions while its economy was still developing.

世界最大二氧化碳排放国去年表示，其碳排放将在2030年前后达到峰值。中国此前曾坚持在经济发展阶段不进行减排。