It's become strangely normal to tell our kids that they're going to die from climate change. If sea-level rise doesn’t get them, then a wildfire will, or a global famine, or crop failures. Maybe a fatal heat wave, the insect apocalypse or the fishless oceans. These are the headlines we've all been told will be the end of humanity.
奇怪的是,告诉我们的孩子他们 将死于气候变化, 这已变得异常正常。 如果海平面上升没有得到他们, 那么野火、全球饥荒 或农作物歉收就会消失。 可能是致命的热浪、昆虫 的启示录 或无鱼的海洋。 这些是 我们都被告知的头条新闻 将是人类的终结。
So we shouldn't be surprised, then, that young people today feel crippled with anxiety. A large international survey asked 10,000 young people about their attitudes to climate change. More than half said they think humanity’s doomed; three-quarters find the future frightening; and more than one in three are hesitant to have children of their own. Young people today truly feel like they could be the last generation. In fact, prominent activist groups actually take on this very name.
因此,当今的年轻人因焦虑 而感到瘫痪, 我们不应该感到惊讶。 一项大型国际调查 向10,000名年轻人 询问了他们对气候变化的态度。 超过一半的人说 他们认为人类注定要失败; 四分之三的人认为 未来令人恐惧; 超过三分之一的人 对生自己的孩子犹豫不决。 今天的年轻人真的 觉得他们可能是最后一代。 实际上,著名的激进组织 实际上就是用这个名字命名的。
Now I get this feeling, I've been there. I used to feel like humanity was doomed, and despite having multiple environmental degrees, I felt completely helpless to do anything about it.
现在我明白了这种感觉, 我去过那里。 我曾经觉得人类注定要失败 ,尽管拥有多个 环境学位, 但我还是感到完全无能为力。
But I'm a data scientist, and after years poring over the data on how far humanity's come and how quickly things are now moving, my perspective on this has changed. I think we've got this framing upside down. Far from being the last generation, I think we will be the first generation: the first generation to be sustainable.
但我是一名数据科学家, 在仔细研究了人类走了多远 以及事物现在发展速度的数据之后, 我对此的看法发生了变化。 我想我们已经把 这个框架颠倒过来了。 我认为我们绝不是最后一代, 而是第一代: 第一代可持续发展。
When we think about sustainability, we might imagine humans have only become unsustainable in the very recent past, that our ancestors lived in perfect balance with nature and only recently has that been knocked off. Unfortunately, this is not true. If we're nostalgic for sustainable paths to rewind back to, there is none. The world has never been sustainable.
当我们考虑可持续性时, 我们可以想象人类 直到最近才变得不可持续, 我们的祖先生活在 与自然的完美平衡中, 直到最近才被淘汰。 不幸的是,事实并非如此。 如果我们怀念可以 追溯到可持续的道路, 那就没有了。 世界从来都不是可持续的。
Now I get that that's a controversial statement, so let me explain why. When we think about the definition of sustainability, we might imagine something like this: "having a low environmental impact to protect future generations." And it's true, by this definition, many of our ancestors were sustainable. They did have a low environmental impact. But the reason they had a low environmental impact is because the populations were tiny. And the reason their populations were tiny is because half of children died before reaching puberty. Half of children died. That, then, raises the question: Is that what we really think sustainability is? Is that the world we want to maintain and preserve, one where half of our children die? Hope your answer to that is no. If we care about human suffering, we need to add another dimension to this. We need to also provide a good life for everyone today.
现在我明白这是一个有争议的说法, 所以让我解释一下原因。 当我们考虑可持续发展的定义时, 我们可能会想象这样的事情: “保护子孙后代的环境影响较小。” 的确,根据这个定义,我们的 许多祖先都是可持续的。 它们对环境的影响确实很小。 但是它们之所以对环境的影响 很小,是因为人口很少。 他们的人口很少的原因 是因为有一半的儿童 在进入青春期之前死亡。 一半的儿童死亡。 那么,这就提出了一个问题: 这就是我们真正认为的 可持续发展吗? 那是我们想要维护和维护的世界, 一个我们一半的孩子死亡的世界吗? 希望你对此的回答是否定的。 如果我们关心人类的痛苦, 我们就需要为此增加另一个层面。 今天,我们还需要 为每个人提供美好的生活。
Now that gives our definition two halves. If we fail on either half, we have failed to be sustainable. That's where our ancestors were never sustainable. They never achieved the first half of the equation. And over the last few centuries, the world has made amazing progress on the first half. As we've shown at Our World in Data, child mortality is now down to four percent. Extreme poverty used to be the default, now less than one in 10 people live there. Literacy and education used to be rare; now, most children in the world get the opportunity to go to school. But the world as it is today is still unacceptable. It's unacceptable that millions of children die every year, that hundreds of millions live on less than two dollars a day, which is an incredibly low poverty line. But pick almost any metric of human wellbeing, and you'll find that the world has become a much better place.
现在,我们的定义分为两半。 如果我们在任何一半都失败了,那么 我们就无法实现可持续发展。 那是我们的祖先从来 都无法实现可持续发展的地方。 他们从未达到 方程式的前半部分。 在过去的几个世纪中,世界 在上半年取得了 惊人的进步。 正如我们在《我们的数据世界》 中所展示的那样, 儿童死亡率现在已降至4%。 极端贫困曾经是默认的, 现在只有不到十分之一的人生活在那里。 识字和教育曾经很少见; 现在,世界上 大多数儿童都有机会上学。 但是,今天的世界仍然 是不可接受的。 每年有数百万 儿童死亡, 数亿儿童每天靠不到两美元生活, 这是令人难以置信的低贫困线, 这是不可接受的。 但是, 选择几乎所有衡量人类福祉的指标, 你会发现世界已经变得更加美好。
But that progress has come at a cost. It's come at a cost to the environment. We burn wood and fossil fuels for energy. We expanded farmlands at the cost of forests, and our insatiable appetite for meat means we now use half of the world's habitable land for farming. We kill billions of animals every year. These are the trends that make us feel doomed. We see these lines rising, and we assume they might never stop.
但这一进展是有代价的。 这是以牺牲环境为代价的。 我们燃烧木材和化石燃料作为能源。 我们以牺牲森林为代价扩大了农田, 我们对肉类的贪得无厌的胃口 意味着我们现在将世界上一半 的可居住土地用于耕种。 我们每年杀死数十亿只动物。 这些趋势使我们感到注定要失败。 我们看到这些线在上升, 我们认为它们可能永远不会停止。
But more recent data tells us a slightly different story. A more hopeful story, that we can turn things around. This is per-capita CO2 emissions in the UK since 1750. Over the last few decades, emissions in the UK have halved. That means that my carbon footprint today is less than half that of my grandparents' when they were my age. That's despite the fact I live a much more extravagant lifestyle, or, as they'd put it, "You youngsters just don't know how good you've got it these days."
但是最近的数据告诉我们 一个略有不同的故事。 一个更有希望的故事 ,我们可以扭转局面。 这是自1750年以来英国 的人均二氧化碳排放量。 在过去的几十年中,英国的 排放量减少了一半。 这意味着我今天 的碳足迹还不到我这个 年龄的祖父母的一半。 尽管事实上我过着更加奢侈的生活方式, 或者,正如他们所 说,“你们这些年轻人只是不知道 自己现在的生活方式有多好。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Now, you might think the UK's cheating here. It used to be this industrial powerhouse, now it gets China, India and Bangladesh to produce its stuff for it. Maybe it's just offshored all these emissions. There's a bit of truth to this -- when we adjust for trade, emissions in the UK are higher -- but we still see this dramatic decline over the last few decades. Offshoring is a bit of the story, but it's not the entire story. At the same time, the UK has increased its GDP. GDP has gone up, while emissions have come down. And it's not the only country to achieve this. You will see the same for the US, for Germany, France, Spain, Portugal. A long list of countries have increased GDP while reducing their emissions. And again, this is not just because they've offshored them. The notion that economic growth has to be incompatible with reducing our environmental impact is simply wrong.
现在,你可能会认为 英国在这里作弊。 它曾经是这个工业强国, 现在它让中国、印度和 孟加拉国为它生产东西。 也许所有这些排放 都离岸了。 这有一点道理—— 当我们根据贸易进行调整时, 英国的排放量会更高—— 但在过去的几十年中, 我们仍然看到这种急剧下降。 离岸外包有点像故事, 但这不是故事的全部。 同时,英国增加了 其国内生产总值。 国内生产总值上升了, 而排放量下降了。 而且它不是唯一一 个实现这一目标的国家。 对于美国、德国、 法国、西班牙、葡萄牙, 你也会看到同样的情况。 许多国家在减少排放的 同时提高 了GDP。 再说一遍,这不仅仅 是因为他们已经离岸外包了。 认为经济增长 必须与减少我们的 环境影响不相容的观念 是完全错误的。
Now rich countries are reducing their emissions, but low- and middle-income countries are increasing theirs. What does this mean at a global level? Well, total CO2 emissions are now beginning to flatline, but actually, emissions per person already peaked a decade ago. That means the emissions of the average person in the world today have peaked, and are now falling. And we will see a peak in total CO2 emissions soon.
现在,富裕国家 正在减少排放, 而低收入和中等收入 国家却在增加排放。 这在全球层面意味着什么? 好吧,二氧化碳总排放量 现在开始趋于平缓, 但实际上,人均排放量 已经在十年前达到峰值。 这意味着当今世界普通 人的排放量 已经达到顶峰, 现在正在下降。 我们很快就会看到二氧化碳 总排放量达到峰值。
Now, why is this happening? A big driver has been technological change. Here, we see coal production in the UK since 1700. Now the UK was the birthplace of industrial coal, and it has now died there. When I was born, more than half of the UK's electricity was coming from coal. This is now less than two percent. And it’s dying in many other countries too. You will see the same for the US, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland. In many countries in the world, coal is dying. Taking its place are renewables, where costs are plummeting. The cost of solar has fallen by 99.8 percent since 1970, fallen by 90 percent in the last decade alone. And if you're worried that it looks like this price trend is leveling off, don't be. When we zoom in, we see that the price of solar continues to fall. And the same is true for wind. Go back a decade, and solar and wind were among the most expensive energy technologies we had. That is why the world was not making progress, that is why countries were not deploying them -- they were far too expensive. But just ten years on, and that script has flipped. In many countries in the world, solar and wind are now the cheapest.
现在,为什么会发生这种情况? 一个重要的推动力是 技术变革。 在这里,我们可以看到自1700年 以来英国的煤炭产量。 现在,英国是工业煤炭的发源地, 现在它已经消失在那里。 当我出生时,英国一半以 上的电力 来自煤炭。 现在还不到百分之二。 而且它在许多其他国家也在消亡。 美国、德国、丹麦、西班牙、 葡萄牙、希腊、爱尔兰 也会看到同样的情况。 在世界上许多国家, 煤炭正在枯死。 取而代之的是可再生能源 ,其成本正在直线下降。 自1970年以来,太阳能成本 下降了99.8%, 仅在过去十年中就 太阳能成本下降了99.8%, 仅在过去十年中就 下降了90%。 而且,如果你担心这种价格趋势 看起来会趋于平稳,那就 不要这样做。 当我们放大时,我们看到 太阳能价格继续下跌。 风也是如此。 追溯到十年前,太阳能 和风能是我们拥有的最 昂贵的能源技术之一。 这就是为什么世界 没有取得进展, 这就是为什么各国 没有部署它们的原因—— 它们太昂贵了。 但是仅仅十年过去了, 剧本就发生了翻转。 在世界上许多国家, 太阳能和风能现在是最便宜的。
Now if we're going to have renewables, we're going to need energy storage. But there's good news there too. The price of batteries has fallen by 98 percent since 1990. If you take the battery you'd find in a Tesla today, go back to 1990, it would have cost one million dollars. It now costs just 12,000. That’s completely transformed the world of energy storage and completely transformed the world of transport. Global sales of petrol and diesel cars have already peaked -- they peaked in 2017, and they are now falling. Taking their place are electric cars, where, in a space of just a few years, sales are going through the roof.
现在,如果我们要拥有可再生能源, 我们就需要储能。 但是那里也有好消息。 自1990年以来,电池的价格 已经下降了98%。 如果你拿今天在特斯拉中 找到的电池,可以追溯 到1990年,它将花费 一百万美元。 现在它的价格仅为12,000英镑。 这彻底改变 了储能世界 ,彻底改变 了交通世界。 汽油和柴油车的全球销量 已经达到顶峰—— 它们在2017年达到顶峰 ,现在正在下降。 取而代之的是电动汽车, 在短短几年内,电动汽车的 销量将达到顶峰。
And from energy and transport to the food we eat, you might imagine that global deforestation is at its highest level ever. But actually, global deforestation peaked decades ago and is now falling. But actually, it's better than that, because many countries are now regrowing their old forests, such that the net decline is even more impressive.
从能源和交通 到我们吃的食物, 你可以想象 全球森林砍伐 正处于有史以来的最高水平。 但实际上,全球森林砍伐 在几十年前达到顶峰 ,现在正在下降。 但实际上,这比这要好, 因为许多国家现在 正在重新种植其古老的森林, 因此净减少幅度更大。
Now, why is this happening? A big driver has been increases in crop yields. For all of our agricultural history, crop yields were low and stagnant. Farmers had basically no opportunities to increase them. Over the last century, across many countries and many different crop types, crop yields have skyrocketed. Here, we see it for the US, for corn, where yields have grown sixfold, from two tonnes to 12 tonnes. Now what this means is we can grow a lot more food from a lot less land. The amount of land used to produce corn in the US has not increased in over a century, but look at the change in corn production.
现在,为什么会发生这种情况? 一个重要的驱动因素 是农作物产量的增加。 在我们所有的农业历史中,农 作物产量都很低而且停滞不前。 农民基本上 没有机会增加农民。 上个世纪, 在许多国家和许多不同 的作物类型中, 农作物产量猛增。 在这里,我们看到了美国的玉米, 其产量增长了六倍, 从2吨增加到12吨。 现在这意味着我们可以用更少的土地 种植更多的食物。 一个多世纪 以来,美国用于生产玉米 的土地数量没有增加, 但看看玉米产量的变化。
My main point here is that in the past, human progress had to come at the cost of the environment. If we wanted energy, we had to burn wood or we had to burn fossil fuels. If we wanted to grow more food, we had to expand farmland, often at the cost of forests. But technology and innovation means we're very quickly decoupling these impacts, such that this conflict is no longer true.
我的主要观点是,过去, 人类的进步必须以 牺牲环境为代价。 如果我们想要能源, 就必须烧木头, 或者必须燃烧化石燃料。 如果我们想种更多的粮食, 就必须扩大农田,这 往往是以牺牲森林为代价。 但是技术和创新 意味着我们很快就 脱钩了这些影响,因此 这种冲突已不再是真的。
Let's then think about the world that we can have. We need to achieve the first half of our equation. We need to end global poverty. And here, I'm not talking about raising everyone above a two-dollar-a-day poverty line. That is simply not good enough. We need to provide everyone with a good, comfortable life. No child should die from a cause that’s preventable. Every child should get the opportunity to go to school and get an education. At the same time, we need to peak and reduce our CO2 emissions; we need to move away from fossil fuels; and we need to end deforestation, while feeding eight, nine, ten billion people, at the same time.
然后让我们想一想 我们可以拥有的世界。 我们需要实现 方程式的前半部分。 我们需要消除全球贫困。 在这里,我说的不是要把所有人 提高到每天两美元的贫困线以上。 这根本不够好。 我们需要为每个人 提供美好、舒适的生活。 任何儿童都不应死 于可以预防的原因。 每个孩子都应该有 机会上学接受教育。 同时,我们需要达到峰值 并减少二氧化碳排放; 我们需要摆脱化石燃料; 我们需要结束森林砍伐, 同时养活八、 九、一百亿人。
How do we do that? How do we become the First Generation? First, our low-carbon technologies need to become the default. There's two ways to do this. The first is to make sure that they are affordable, to make sure that they are the cheapest option. Solar and wind are already cheaper than coal, electric cars will soon be cheaper than gasoline, and alternative proteins need to be cheaper than meat. The other way to do this is to make sure these technologies are better. Environmental products have often been promoted as this happy gimmick, but they need to go mainstream, and for that, they need to be better than the high-carbon alternatives.
我们该怎么做? 我们如何成为第一代? 首先,我们的低碳技术 需要成为默认技术。 有两种方法可以做到这一点。 首先是 确保它们价格合理, 确保它们是最便宜 的选择。 太阳能和风能已经比煤炭便宜, 电动汽车很快就会比汽油便宜 ,替代蛋白 必须比肉类便宜。 另一种方法 是确保 这些技术更好。 环保产品经常被 宣传为这种快乐的花招, 但它们需要成为主流, 为此,它们需要 比高碳替代品更好。
Now my brother recently got an electric car. He didn't get an electric car because he really cares about the environment. He does not want to be the next Greta Thunberg. And he definitely does not want to be like me.
现在我哥哥 最近买了一辆电动车。 他没有买电动汽车, 因为他真的很 关心环境。 他不想成为 下一个 Greta Thunberg。 而且他绝对 不想像我一样。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
He got an electric car because the design and the driving experience were far better than the petrol alternatives. That is how we make low-carbon technologies the default. We need to reframe the way we talk about sustainability as often promoted as a sacrifice. Environmental messaging is often built on scarcity. It’s about reducing our lives back to the bare minimum and no more. But this is not a vision that inspires anyone. This is not the future we want to build. We need to reframe sustainability as an opportunity, because it is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to provide clean, abundant energy for everyone, whether that's powering cities or countries, or getting rural communities connected for the very first time. It’s about not being at the whims of fossil-fuel markets or having millions plunged into fuel poverty when dictators invade neighboring countries. It's about breathing clean air. Here, we see the decline in harmful air pollution in the US, from 2005 to 2021. Stopping people from dying is not a sacrifice.
他买了一辆电动汽车, 因为它的设计和驾驶体验 比汽油替代品好得多。 这就是我们将低碳技术 作为默认技术的方式。 我们需要重新定义 我们谈论可持续发展的方式, 因为可持续发展通常被当作牺牲来宣传。 环境信息 通常建立在稀缺性之上。 这是为了将我们的生活减少 到最低限度,仅此 而已。 但这不是一个能激发 任何人灵感的愿景。 这不是我们想要建设的未来。 我们需要将可持续发展 重新定义为机遇, 因为这是一个机遇。 这是一个为所有人提供清洁、 充足能源的机会, 无论是为 城市或国家供电, 还是第一次让农村社区联网 。 这是为了不要随心所欲 地利用化石燃料市场, 也不要在独裁者入侵 邻国 时让数百万人 陷入燃料贫困。 这是关于呼吸干净的空气。 在这里,我们看到, 从2005年到2021年, 美国的有害空气污染有所下降。 阻止人们死亡 不是一种牺牲。
Finally, it's a way to rethink the way we live our lives, the way we design our cities and our communities. Here, we see Copenhagen, with bikes on the road, or Amsterdam, where you have layer upon layer of bike rack. Now I'm not saying this is how our cities have to look. We can design them in any way we want. What I'm saying is that sustainability gives us the shelf to rethink the way we do things.
最后,这是一种重新思考 我们的生活方式、 我们设计城市 和社区的方式。 在这里,我们可以 看到哥本哈根,自行车在路上, 或者阿姆斯特丹, 那里有一 层又一层的自行车架。 现在我并不是说 我们的城市必须这样看。 我们可以随心所欲地设计它们。 我的意思是,可持续发展 为我们提供了 重新思考做事方式的架子。
Finally, we need to rethink the way we use data. As a data scientist, I take this very seriously. The environmentalists have done an amazing job of waking the world up to these problems. Those charts of rising CO2 and rising temperature have been absolutely critical. They're why I'm on the stage today, they're why I got involved in this in the first place. But there's a limit. When that's all we see, we become paralyzed. We see these lines rising, and we assume that they might never stop. We assume that no progress has been made, that nothing good is happening. But as we've just seen, this couldn't be further from the truth. We need to use data to inspire, to show what the problems are, also what the solutions are, and we need to show real signs of progress from countries, individuals, companies.
最后,我们需要重新思考 我们使用数据的方式。 作为一名数据科学家, 我非常认真地对待这个问题。 环保主义 者在唤醒世界意识到这些 问题方面做得非常出色。 这些二氧化碳上升 和温度上升 的图表绝对至关重要。 这就是我今天登上舞台的原因 ,也是我一开始就 参与这个的原因。 但是有一个极限。 当我们只看到这些时, 我们就会陷入瘫痪。 我们看到这些线在上升, 我们假设它们可能永远不会停止。 我们假设没有取得任何进展,也没有 发生任何好事。 但正如我们刚才所见, 这与事实相去甚远。 我们需要使用数据来激发灵感, 展示问题所在, 解决方案是什么,我们需要展示国家, 个人、公司的真实进展 迹象。
Historically, our sustainability equation went like this. It was one or the other. You could not have both at the same time. We can be the first generation that does achieve both. Now the emphasis here is on "can." None of this is inevitable. It's not even inevitable that we'd have this opportunity in the first place. We're only here because of the relentless work of environmentalists, activists, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, communicators, determined to make the world a better place. They have brought us here, and we need to take that forward. We need to do it bigger, and we need to do it much, much faster.
从历史上看,我们的可持续发展 方程式是这样的。 它是一个或另一个。 你不可能同时拥有两者。 我们可以成为第一代同时实现 这两个目标的人。 现在这里的重点是 “可以”。 所有这些都不是不可避免的。 我们一开始就有这样的机会 甚至不是不可避免 的。 我们 之所以来到这里,是因为环保主义者、 活动家、科学家、工程师、 企业家、传播者的不懈努力, 他们 决心让世界变得更美好。 他们把我们带到了这里, 我们需要向前迈进。 我们需要把它做得更大, 我们需要做得更快。
But we do have the opportunity to be the first generation that builds a sustainable world. Let's take it.
但我们确实有 机会成为建设可持续发展 世界的第一代人。 让我们拿走吧。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Cheers and applause)
(欢呼和掌声)