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關(guān)于氣候變暖,我們的兩個核心假設(shè)可能都錯了

David Schimel
2022-11-19

我們很可能低估了氣候變化的嚴重性。

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2021年12月31日,美國科羅拉多州路易斯維爾,一位居民從自家舊居廢墟走過。自然熄滅前,肆虐的山火已經(jīng)摧毀了科羅拉多州的數(shù)個城鎮(zhèn)。圖片來源:JASON CONNOLLY - AFP - GETTY IMAGES

對于氣候變化的認識,我們是否完全弄錯了方向?我們最大的生存恐懼會不會反而有望帶來更加美好的未來?

自1995年以來,聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)發(fā)布的一系列報告為我們探究氣候變化問題的方向奠定了基調(diào)。首先,人們認為,氣候影響是一系列緩慢演進的問題,而且可以借助各種成熟技術(shù)和管理流程加以控制。其次,人們認為,緩解氣候變化需要付出高昂的代價,并且會對經(jīng)濟造成破壞。按照這種想法,總體而言,氣候變化是一個預(yù)防起來成本高昂,放任不管也不會造成太大破壞的問題。

因此,我們應(yīng)對氣候變化的動力大多并非出自市場考量,而是公平、環(huán)保及其他難以估價的要素。作為聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會的第二、第三份報告的主要作者,我對這種信念框架非常了解。

但有沒有可能這兩大核心假設(shè)都錯了?有沒有可能我們低估了氣候變化的嚴重性,而其諸多危害又很難或者根本不可能適應(yīng)?此外,如果潛在的技術(shù)進步速度比預(yù)計的要快,替代技術(shù)的成本比預(yù)計的要低,又該如何?

如此一來,基本的經(jīng)濟等式就將發(fā)生變化:與氣候變化造成的損失相比,脫碳成本或?qū)⒆兊貌辉俑甙海踔聊軌蚪o全球經(jīng)濟帶來正收益。

這可能才是我們生活的世界的真相。

何以至此

氣候科學(xué)問世之初,相關(guān)研究往往集中于探究氣候變化在遙遠未來會產(chǎn)生何種影響,常常一眼看到2100年、二氧化碳濃度達到工業(yè)化前的兩倍水平。由于當(dāng)前氣候環(huán)境的變化較大,而且科學(xué)家在預(yù)測相對于系統(tǒng)自身變動較小的變化時通常持保守態(tài)度,進行短期預(yù)測較為困難。許多人認為,相關(guān)危害要在很久以后才會顯現(xiàn)出來,社會經(jīng)濟體系將有時間進行相關(guān)調(diào)整。

與此同時,持謹慎觀點(常被指為“危言聳聽”)的一派認為,緩解氣候變化要付出高昂的代價。根據(jù)21世紀初搭建的模型,由對技術(shù)進步速度的假設(shè)可以推出,創(chuàng)新速度也會較為緩慢。而在實踐中,減排挑戰(zhàn)又與天量支出、犧牲聯(lián)系在了一起,縱觀整個歷史,這種情況在技術(shù)變革中還是首次出現(xiàn)。

由于危害似乎還很遙遠,緩解氣候變化又代價高昂,很多人覺得,積極應(yīng)對性價比太低,沒有必要。

那么真實情況如何呢?僅以美國為例,颶風(fēng)、熱浪的威力日甚一日,山火日益頻發(fā),危害也越發(fā)嚴重,持續(xù)干旱導(dǎo)致供水設(shè)施陷入癱瘓,這些都發(fā)生在全球最富裕、最具韌性的國家之一——美國。之所以會出現(xiàn)這些情況,是因為“氣候極端化”趨勢(極端高溫天氣、干旱、惡劣天氣)正在加速,而這些問題即便最先進的氣候模型也難以預(yù)測。

與此同時,事實證明,對可再生能源成本的預(yù)測同樣具有誤導(dǎo)性。正如近期一份工作文件總結(jié)的那樣,太陽能成本的下降速度一直快于國際能源署(International Energy Authority)和聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會的模型的預(yù)測。如不出現(xiàn)意外障礙或反向激勵措施,太陽能和風(fēng)能或可在20年內(nèi)接近實現(xiàn)“零碳”目標(biāo),不過這也需要在支持技術(shù)、能源存儲、智能電網(wǎng)、充電技術(shù)和運輸技術(shù)方面取得突破。

真實世界給出的“算式”與商業(yè)領(lǐng)袖、政治家和大多數(shù)環(huán)保倡導(dǎo)者(艾默里·洛文斯這樣的“異類”除外)所假設(shè)的相反。氣候變化已經(jīng)對當(dāng)今世界產(chǎn)生危害,帶來沉重損失,要想減輕其影響,不僅十分困難,還要付出高昂代價。

與此同時,各種解決方案進展迅速,并且成本不斷降低,吸引力日益提高。現(xiàn)在的實際情況是,通過采取短期、積極、低成本的緩解措施來規(guī)避(氣候變化造成)危害,我們的未來將會變得更為富足,而非更為貧窮。在那樣的一個世界中,依然會有贏家和輸家,只是贏家的數(shù)量會多得多,完好無損(而非破壞嚴重)的自然世界也將讓很多人從中受益。

要想對氣候變化進行預(yù)測,需要完成艱巨的分析工作,而根據(jù)干預(yù)程度的不同對經(jīng)濟成果進行衡量同樣具有高度的不確定性,其主要原因在于,此項工作需要對人類行為進行假設(shè),還要對本身就極不確定的物理現(xiàn)象和社會變化進行預(yù)測。

而我們的立法者正是基于上述這些存在缺陷的氣候與經(jīng)濟預(yù)測制定的氣候政策。受科學(xué)文化影響,也為了避免被人指為“危言聳聽”,經(jīng)濟學(xué)家和氣候?qū)W家的預(yù)測大多較為“中庸”。相似的,在評估氣候變化對經(jīng)濟的危害時,很多人錯誤假定農(nóng)業(yè)可以輕松適應(yīng)更可持續(xù)的生產(chǎn)方式、資本能夠高效地分配給創(chuàng)新企業(yè),但實際情況顯然要復(fù)雜得多。

隨著氣候?qū)θ蚪?jīng)濟和人類福祉的影響越發(fā)明顯,我們相信,未來將會有更多投資進入這一領(lǐng)域,障礙和不當(dāng)激勵則會越來越少,從美國總統(tǒng)喬·拜登的政府最近在美國氣候立法中的作為就能夠明顯看出這一趨勢。

“負負可以得正”,即對氣候變化速度和影響的錯誤估計、對緩解措施的挑戰(zhàn)和成本的錯誤估計能夠加快緩解和適應(yīng)氣候變化方面的行動。歷史告訴我們,轉(zhuǎn)型絕非易事,但不斷推進的研究也表明,只要努力,我們就一定可以成功。(財富中文網(wǎng))

戴維·希梅爾(David Schimel)博士,美國國家航空航天局噴氣推進實驗室(NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)高級研究科學(xué)家,Entelligent(一家通過數(shù)據(jù)建模幫助投資者優(yōu)化投資決策的公司)董事長。憑借自己在擔(dān)任聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會召集人兼主要作者(IPPC Convening Lead Author)時所作的工作,希梅爾獲得了分享2007年諾貝爾和平獎(Nobel Peace Prize)的殊榮。

Fortune.com上評論文章中表達的觀點僅代表作者個人觀點,并不代表《財富》雜志的觀點和立場。

譯者:梁宇

審校:夏林

對于氣候變化的認識,我們是否完全弄錯了方向?我們最大的生存恐懼會不會反而有望帶來更加美好的未來?

自1995年以來,聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)發(fā)布的一系列報告為我們探究氣候變化問題的方向奠定了基調(diào)。首先,人們認為,氣候影響是一系列緩慢演進的問題,而且可以借助各種成熟技術(shù)和管理流程加以控制。其次,人們認為,緩解氣候變化需要付出高昂的代價,并且會對經(jīng)濟造成破壞。按照這種想法,總體而言,氣候變化是一個預(yù)防起來成本高昂,放任不管也不會造成太大破壞的問題。

因此,我們應(yīng)對氣候變化的動力大多并非出自市場考量,而是公平、環(huán)保及其他難以估價的要素。作為聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會的第二、第三份報告的主要作者,我對這種信念框架非常了解。

但有沒有可能這兩大核心假設(shè)都錯了?有沒有可能我們低估了氣候變化的嚴重性,而其諸多危害又很難或者根本不可能適應(yīng)?此外,如果潛在的技術(shù)進步速度比預(yù)計的要快,替代技術(shù)的成本比預(yù)計的要低,又該如何?

如此一來,基本的經(jīng)濟等式就將發(fā)生變化:與氣候變化造成的損失相比,脫碳成本或?qū)⒆兊貌辉俑甙海踔聊軌蚪o全球經(jīng)濟帶來正收益。

這可能才是我們生活的世界的真相。

何以至此

氣候科學(xué)問世之初,相關(guān)研究往往集中于探究氣候變化在遙遠未來會產(chǎn)生何種影響,常常一眼看到2100年、二氧化碳濃度達到工業(yè)化前的兩倍水平。由于當(dāng)前氣候環(huán)境的變化較大,而且科學(xué)家在預(yù)測相對于系統(tǒng)自身變動較小的變化時通常持保守態(tài)度,進行短期預(yù)測較為困難。許多人認為,相關(guān)危害要在很久以后才會顯現(xiàn)出來,社會經(jīng)濟體系將有時間進行相關(guān)調(diào)整。

與此同時,持謹慎觀點(常被指為“危言聳聽”)的一派認為,緩解氣候變化要付出高昂的代價。根據(jù)21世紀初搭建的模型,由對技術(shù)進步速度的假設(shè)可以推出,創(chuàng)新速度也會較為緩慢。而在實踐中,減排挑戰(zhàn)又與天量支出、犧牲聯(lián)系在了一起,縱觀整個歷史,這種情況在技術(shù)變革中還是首次出現(xiàn)。

由于危害似乎還很遙遠,緩解氣候變化又代價高昂,很多人覺得,積極應(yīng)對性價比太低,沒有必要。

那么真實情況如何呢?僅以美國為例,颶風(fēng)、熱浪的威力日甚一日,山火日益頻發(fā),危害也越發(fā)嚴重,持續(xù)干旱導(dǎo)致供水設(shè)施陷入癱瘓,這些都發(fā)生在全球最富裕、最具韌性的國家之一——美國。之所以會出現(xiàn)這些情況,是因為“氣候極端化”趨勢(極端高溫天氣、干旱、惡劣天氣)正在加速,而這些問題即便最先進的氣候模型也難以預(yù)測。

與此同時,事實證明,對可再生能源成本的預(yù)測同樣具有誤導(dǎo)性。正如近期一份工作文件總結(jié)的那樣,太陽能成本的下降速度一直快于國際能源署(International Energy Authority)和聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會的模型的預(yù)測。如不出現(xiàn)意外障礙或反向激勵措施,太陽能和風(fēng)能或可在20年內(nèi)接近實現(xiàn)“零碳”目標(biāo),不過這也需要在支持技術(shù)、能源存儲、智能電網(wǎng)、充電技術(shù)和運輸技術(shù)方面取得突破。

真實世界給出的“算式”與商業(yè)領(lǐng)袖、政治家和大多數(shù)環(huán)保倡導(dǎo)者(艾默里·洛文斯這樣的“異類”除外)所假設(shè)的相反。氣候變化已經(jīng)對當(dāng)今世界產(chǎn)生危害,帶來沉重損失,要想減輕其影響,不僅十分困難,還要付出高昂代價。

與此同時,各種解決方案進展迅速,并且成本不斷降低,吸引力日益提高。現(xiàn)在的實際情況是,通過采取短期、積極、低成本的緩解措施來規(guī)避(氣候變化造成)危害,我們的未來將會變得更為富足,而非更為貧窮。在那樣的一個世界中,依然會有贏家和輸家,只是贏家的數(shù)量會多得多,完好無損(而非破壞嚴重)的自然世界也將讓很多人從中受益。

要想對氣候變化進行預(yù)測,需要完成艱巨的分析工作,而根據(jù)干預(yù)程度的不同對經(jīng)濟成果進行衡量同樣具有高度的不確定性,其主要原因在于,此項工作需要對人類行為進行假設(shè),還要對本身就極不確定的物理現(xiàn)象和社會變化進行預(yù)測。

而我們的立法者正是基于上述這些存在缺陷的氣候與經(jīng)濟預(yù)測制定的氣候政策。受科學(xué)文化影響,也為了避免被人指為“危言聳聽”,經(jīng)濟學(xué)家和氣候?qū)W家的預(yù)測大多較為“中庸”。相似的,在評估氣候變化對經(jīng)濟的危害時,很多人錯誤假定農(nóng)業(yè)可以輕松適應(yīng)更可持續(xù)的生產(chǎn)方式、資本能夠高效地分配給創(chuàng)新企業(yè),但實際情況顯然要復(fù)雜得多。

隨著氣候?qū)θ蚪?jīng)濟和人類福祉的影響越發(fā)明顯,我們相信,未來將會有更多投資進入這一領(lǐng)域,障礙和不當(dāng)激勵則會越來越少,從美國總統(tǒng)喬·拜登的政府最近在美國氣候立法中的作為就能夠明顯看出這一趨勢。

“負負可以得正”,即對氣候變化速度和影響的錯誤估計、對緩解措施的挑戰(zhàn)和成本的錯誤估計能夠加快緩解和適應(yīng)氣候變化方面的行動。歷史告訴我們,轉(zhuǎn)型絕非易事,但不斷推進的研究也表明,只要努力,我們就一定可以成功。(財富中文網(wǎng))

戴維·希梅爾(David Schimel)博士,美國國家航空航天局噴氣推進實驗室(NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)高級研究科學(xué)家,Entelligent(一家通過數(shù)據(jù)建模幫助投資者優(yōu)化投資決策的公司)董事長。憑借自己在擔(dān)任聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會召集人兼主要作者(IPPC Convening Lead Author)時所作的工作,希梅爾獲得了分享2007年諾貝爾和平獎(Nobel Peace Prize)的殊榮。

Fortune.com上評論文章中表達的觀點僅代表作者個人觀點,并不代表《財富》雜志的觀點和立場。

譯者:梁宇

審校:夏林

What if we have been looking at climate change totally wrong? What if our greatest existential fear could instead offer hope for a brighter future?

Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), going back to 1995, have set the stage for how we think about climate change. First, climate impacts were thought to be a gradual and slowly increasing set of problems that would be manageable by well-understood technological and management processes. Second, mitigation was thought to be expensive and damaging to the economy. By that way of thinking, climate change would on balance be expensive to prevent and only moderately damaging.

As such, much of the motivation to respond has been driven by nonmarket considerations such as equity, the preservation of the natural world, and other benefits that are hard to price. As a lead author of the second and third IPCC reports, I understand this framework of beliefs quite well.

But what if these two core assumptions are wrong? What if the severity of climate change has been underestimated, and many of its harms are hard or impossible to adapt to? And what if the rate of potential technological progress is faster and the cost of alternative technologies cheaper than projected?

Then the fundamental economic equation changes, and decarbonization could be inexpensive compared to damages—or even benefit the global economy.

We likely live in that world.

How we got here

In the early days of climate science, research tended to focus on impacts far off in the future, at doubled preindustrial CO2 levels, often projected to the year 2100. Nearer-term projections were harder to characterize because the current climate is highly variable and scientists were conservative about projecting changes that were small relative to the system’s own variability. Many concluded that damages were far off in time and that socioeconomic systems would have time to adjust.

At the same time, those in the field being cautious (despite accusations of alarmism), projections of the cost of mitigation were quite high. Based on models from the early 2000s, assumptions about the rates of technological progress assumed slow rates of innovation. In fact, the challenge of mitigating emissions became associated with large expenditures and sacrifices, which would be a first for technological changes throughout history.

Since damages appeared to be far off, and mitigation costs high, the climate equation appeared to project a world where aggressive mitigation was expensive and thus unwarranted.

What about the world we live in now? In the U.S. alone, we see the effects of intensifying hurricanes and heat waves, more frequent and more intense wildfires, and persistent drought leading to the failure of water infrastructure—all of this in one of the wealthiest and most resilient nations in the world. These impacts are here because changes to extremes (very hot days and nights, droughts, severe weather) are accelerating. These are precisely the aspects of climate that even the most advanced climate models have challenges projecting.

At the same time, projections of the cost of renewable energy have proved equally misleading. Solar energy costs have decreased consistently faster than the International Energy Authority and IPCC models suggest, as summarized in one recent working paper. Absent unexpected barriers or counterproductive incentives, solar and wind power could allow nearly complete decarbonization in two decades, though this would require advances in supporting technologies, storage, smart grid, charging, and transportation.

This world has the opposite calculus from the one business leaders, politicians, and most advocates for the environment (with notable exceptions like Amory Lovins) have assumed. Damages are here. They are expensive. And they are very hard and (also) expensive to mitigate.

Meanwhile, solutions are now attractive, rapidly advancing, and constantly decreasing in cost. In this world, avoiding damages by aggressive and low-cost mitigation in the near term leads to a wealthier future rather than an impoverished one. There are still winners and losers in this world, but many more winners, including those who benefit from an intact rather than a catastrophically damaged natural world.

Predicting climate change is a formidable analytical feat, but gauging economic outcomes based on various levels of intervention is also highly uncertain, not least because it requires assumptions about human behavior and projections of physical phenomena and societal changes that are inherently very uncertain.

These flawed climate and economic forecasts shape how our lawmakers make climate policy. Forecasts by economists and climate scientists have largely been moderate—a function of scientific culture and the desire to blunt accusations of alarmism. Similarly, many economic estimates of climate change damage erroneously assumed that farming could easily adapt to more sustainable production and that capital would be efficiently reallocated to innovative companies. The reality, of course, is more complicated.

As the impacts of climate on the global economy and on human welfare become more obvious, we can expect more investment and the removal of more barriers and perverse incentives, as was evident in the Biden administration’s recent U.S. climate legislation.

Two wrongs—inaccurate estimates about both the pace and impact of climate change and the challenge and costs of mitigation—could produce one right: faster action on mitigation and adaptation to climate change. History tells us that the transition will not be easy, but evolving research suggests it should be feasible.

David Schimel, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the chairman of Entelligent, which models data to help investors make better decisions. For his work as IPPC Convening Lead Author, he participated in the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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