​​

If we’re going to avoid a climate disaster, we need to find better ways to do pretty much everything. Almost every part of modern life—from the food we eat to the buildings we live in—releases greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. We need to zero out those emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

如果要避免气候灾难，我们需要在几乎所有事情上下功夫以寻求更好的处理方法。几乎现代生活的方方面面，从我们吃的食物到居住的建筑，都会释放出温室气体，将热量困在大气之中。我们需要做到温室气体净零排放，以避免气候变化造成难以估量的恶劣影响。

I’m optimistic we can do it, but we have to overcome a serious obstacle: Green technologies are at a competitive disadvantage with the approaches they need to replace. Typically, innovations that represent a significant improvement over what came before are widely adopted. The Internet is a great example. When I was a kid, I had to spend an afternoon in the library if I wanted to research a new topic. Today, I can just pull my smartphone out of my pocket and find what I want to know in seconds.

我很乐观，我们可以做到这一点，但我们必须克服一个严重的障碍：绿色技术与其亟待取代的技术相比，在竞争中处于劣势。通常情况下，相较之前的技术有显著进步的创新会被广泛采用。互联网就是一个很好的例子。在儿时，如果我想研究一个新课题，我得在图书馆呆上一整个下午。而如今，我只需从口袋里掏出智能手机，几秒钟就能找到我想知道的东西。

But green technologies don’t work that way. Their improvements are mostly invisible. The electrons from a wind turbine don't run your lights any better than electrons from a coal plant, and a house built with zero-carbon cement won’t feel any bigger to you. Plus, most green alternatives right now are more expensive than their carbon-emitting counterparts. I don’t think a lot of people are willing or able to pay more for the exact same product they can buy now for less.

但绿色技术并非如此。它所带来的改进大多并不能直观所见。风力涡轮机发电与煤电厂发电就运行电灯来讲并无差别，用零碳水泥建造的房子也不会让你觉得空间变大。此外，目前大多数的绿色替代品都比其会造成碳排放的同类产品更为昂贵。我认为，并不会有很多人愿意或有能力花更多的钱来购买他们现在可以用低价就可买到的同样的产品。

The solution is to lower the Green Premiums, make net-zero technologies just as affordable as the carbon-emitting versions available today, and create incentives for adoption. I recently wrote a white paper about the investments and policies we need to make that happen as quickly as possible. I hope you’ll check it out. Read my white paper here.

解决方案是要降低绿色溢价，让净零排放技术像现在的碳排放技术一样负担得起，还应采取激励措施，鼓励人们采用。我最近写了一本白皮书，讲述尽快实现净零排放所需要的投资和政策。我希望你能去看看。点击这里可下载我的白皮书。​​​​