VOA常速英语:As Climate Talks Stutter, Africa Suffers The Impact Of A Warming World

Five months ago a bustling fish market stood on the shores of Malawi’s Lake Chihuahua.Now hundreds of fishing boats lie marooned on the cracked mud.Water levels fluctuate but scientists say climate change is making the seasonal dry out of the lake far more dramatic.Fishermen are being forced to leave and look for work elsewhere.“Climate change contributes to the current recession that we are experiencing,because you can see that in 2012 there was a recession where the lake lost about 80 percent of its water then it recovered in 2013, but not fully so since then every year we’ve been experiencing these recessions.”
五个月前，马拉维的Chihuahua湖岸边的海鲜市场还是熙熙攘攘。但是现在成百上千的渔船被困在干涸的泥土里。湖水有涨有落，但是科学家称气候变化使得湖水的季节性干涸更加严重。渔民们被迫离开，四处寻找工作。“气候变化造成了现在的衰退，因为你看，在2012年，湖水减少了百分之八十，然后在2013年就恢复了。但是没有完全恢复，然后每年我们都经历了湖水的减少。”

Policymakers gathering at the COP24 for climate talks say it is developing countries like Malawi that are being hit hardest by the impacts of climate change.The charity Water Aid has released a report ranking the country’s worst hit by water shortages with Sudan, Nigeria and Pakistan making up the top three.“But the fact is that there’s people who are living with the impacts of climate change right now and they’re feeling their impacts not through carbon but through water and so and as we’ve seen in the past few years and will continue to see for many years to come unfortunately is a huge increase in water stress and water scrap, water scarcity.”
参加全球气候变化大会进行气候谈判的政策制定者们说，像马拉维这样的发展中国家是受气候变化影响最大的国家。一家叫做水援助组织的慈善组织发表报告称受到水源短缺的国家中，苏丹、尼日利亚和巴基斯坦是最严重的三个国家。“事实上，现在有很多人生活在受气候变化影响的地区。他们受到影响不是因为烧煤而是由于缺水，我们过去几年已经看到，并且持续很多年后也将看到由于水资源的巨大短缺带来的危机。”

Richer nations have pledged 100 billion dollars a year for poorer nations to deal with the consequences of climate change,but Water Aid says they are failing to deliver.Scientists say emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 to have any hope of coping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the target agreed in the Paris Climate Deal.
富裕国家已经向穷国捐献了千亿美金来解决气候变化造成的后果，但是水援助组织称这个目的没有实现。科学家称到2030年二氧化碳的排放会减少百分之四十五，有望将全球变暖降低1.5摄氏度，实现巴黎气候公约的目标。

But the number of coal-fired power stations, the most polluting form of energy generation is growing.The German organization Ergo Volt calculates that 478 billion dollars had been invested into expansion of the coal industry between January 2016 and September 2018 including in Africa.“Fourteen African countries now the first coal plants are being developed.It’s completely crazy.Economies that could just be leap frogging to a renewable energy economy that instead are having largely by foreign companies having coal plants being pushed on them as a Solution.”Meanwhile the World Health Organization warns that climate change will exacerbate the impact of some diseases and health problems including Malaria, malnutrition and heat exposure.
但是制造能源的最污染形式，也就是燃煤电站的数量不断增加。名为Ergo Volt的德国组织统计出在2016年1月到2018年9月间，包括非洲在内，有4,780亿美金投入到燃煤工业的扩大中。拥有首批燃煤工厂的14个非洲国家已经进行开发了。太疯狂了。本来可以转向再生能源的经济发展，反而转向了由外国公司拥有的燃煤工厂作为经济的主要力量。同时世界卫生组织警告称气候变化会加剧一些疾病和健康问题的影响，包括疟疾，营养不良和热暴露。

Henry Ridgwell for VOA news London
美国之音记者Henry Ridgwell伦敦报道