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Climate change: Why isn’t Nicaragua in the Paris agreement?

氣候變遷:為何尼加拉瓜不加入巴黎協定?

· 每日跟讀單元 Daily English,國際時事跟讀Daily Shadowing

Ever since US President Donald Trump declared that he would withdraw the US from the landmark Paris climate change agreement, much has been made of the fact only two other countries have not signed up.

自從美國總統川普宣布,他將讓美國退出劃時代的巴黎氣候變遷協定以來,只有其他兩個國家沒有簽署加入該協定,成為眾所周知的事。

They are Syria, and the Central American nation of Nicaragua - but the US is very different from either. Syria has been embroiled in a civil war for six years, leaving 300,000 dead, so it is perhaps understandable that it did not participate in talks.

他們是敘利亞與中美洲的尼加拉瓜—但美國與這兩國的狀況非常不同。敘利亞陷入6年內戰,造成30萬人喪生,因此沒有參與相關會談,或許是可理解的。

Nicaragua’s reason for refusing the deal, though, is not because it wanted to burn more fossil fuels, but because the agreement did not go far enough. The country already gets more than half of its energy from renewable resources, and plans to bump that up to 90% by 2020.

然而,尼加拉瓜拒絕該協定,並非因為想要燃燒更多的化石燃料,而是因為該協定遠為不足。這個國家已有超過半數的能源來自再生資源,並計畫在2020年時將比例猛升到90%。

A 2013 World Bank report labelled it "a renewable energy paradise", with extensive opportunity for geothermic, wind, solar and wave energy. When the Paris deal was being negotiated, Nicaragua said there was a total mismatch between what the document said was needed to prevent climate change, and what signatories proposed to do about it.

世界銀行2013年發表的一份報告,將富含地熱、風力、太陽與波浪能源開發機會的尼國,稱為「再生能源的天堂」。在巴黎協定協商階段,尼加拉瓜說,該文件針對防範氣候變遷所設定的目標,與簽署國為此提出的計畫完全不協調。

The goal of the Paris agreement is to restrict temperature increases by 2100 to a maximum of two degrees Celsius more than before the global industrial age - and aim for 1.5C if possible.

巴黎協定的目標是在2100年前,將升溫限定在最多不超過全球工業時代前攝氏2度;若有可能,則致力控制在攝氏1.5度。

Source article: http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1108561&day=2017-06-07