Yellen arrives for a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the US Treasury on July 28. Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
珍妮特·耶伦在气候问题上有所作为的时间不多了
Christopher Condon, Saijel Kishan
Janet Yellen 在2021年1月的确认听证会树立了一面旗帜。她宣称，气候变化是一种“生存威胁（existential threat）”，作为财政部长，她将把它作为工作的重点。
自上任以来，她就对经济和金融体系的危险发出了警告。她敦促国会和富裕国家政府采取更多措施，帮助较贫穷的国家，适应全球变暖，并让财政部支持实施 Joe Biden 总统的签署的气候法案，试图从这项庞大的新法律中获得最大利益。
注意：
1.make it a focus of her work 作为工作重点
2.take office 上任
3.sprawling new law 庞大的新法律
直言不讳的气候鹰派、罗德岛州民主党参议员 Sheldon Whitehouse 表示，耶伦是“整个拜登政府中气候行动的最佳盟友”。
注意：
1.hawk 鹰派
2.Rohde Island 罗德岛州
简言之，尚未有财政部长将气候变化放置于更高优先级，相较于耶伦来说。对有些人来说，这减轻了不少负担。但是对其他人，这些事会被认为属于太简单而无法声称（让自己来干，即无法揽活）。批评者争论，耶伦并未做足功课，来实施更好的监督，关于金融系统中的气候风险（问题），或者足够努力工作，以至于在全球竞争中腾挪一定资本来拥抱清洁能源。
注意：
1.that's a great relief 这减轻了不少负担
2.it's a distinction that's too easy to claim 这会被认为太简单而无法揽活
3.oversight 监督
随着2024年总统选举迫近，她能操作的时间窗口正在关闭。与此同时，今年夏天，关于热浪、野火、洪水的危害，强调了气候混乱的威胁，一些受灾严重的州的主要保险公司都在限制业务。
“她用一种大家都能接受的方式改善了气候”一位任职于自然资源保护委员会国际气候金融专家，Joe Thwaites 说到，“但是财政部真的未全力以赴”。
注意：
1.in a way that is very welcome 一种大家都能接受的方式
2.Natural Resources Defense Council 自然资源保护委员会
3.pull out all the stop 全力以赴。即每一站都拉出来遛遛。
在一场与彭博环保的面试中，77岁的耶伦拒绝上述评价。“我们尽快工作，来推行这项议事日程。你将会记住，过去四年，美国什么事情都没干，只是地址气候。我们使得船，调头了180度。”
耶伦会将在周二的气候金融论坛发言，在纽约的联合国大会的边席上发言（该活动由彭博慈善组织举办，该慈善组织是 Michael Bloomberg 的慈善组织，Bloomberg 是彭博新闻社的创始人和多数股东。）。
注意：
1.on the sideline of 在某个活动的旁边
在许多方面，耶伦是一个很好的财政部人选，正如气候倡议者希望的样。她关于气候的工作记录要追溯到1990年，那时候她在克林顿的领导班子工作，担任克林顿政府的白宫经济委员会顾问。
注意：
1.chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers 白宫经济委员会顾问
Yellen, center, with President Clinton, left, Vice President Gore, right, and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, at the Oval Office, in 1997. Photographer: Stephen Jaffe/AFP/Getty Images
现在，在财政部，耶伦站在领导班子经济、财政、金融监管政策制定的中心。作为全球最杰出的经济学家之一，她懂得使用金融刺激（政策）的力量，（这种工具）还能取代政府禁令，形成企业、家庭的行为习惯，引导他们进入气候友好型，这些都是用的萝卜而非大棒。
注意：
1.as one of the world's most prominent economists
2.government interdiction 政府禁令
这一点也在拜登的《通胀缩减法案》中显现，该法案计划更少的美国温室气体排放，比2005年减少 40%。
“一些实际有效的措施是有必要的，然而，一些在获得国内广泛传播的支持的措施也是有必要的。”耶伦提到IRA（暂时未知是何物？）时候说到，“我认为，拜登总统是完全正确的，使用萝卜方式而非大棒，是一种可以获得足够支持的、产生足够活动的（方式），会使得目前的工作成为有效的计划。”
关于IRA 及其由环保主义者执行 的批评是微不足道的（marginal），事实上，这获得了很多掌声。但对于耶伦其他领域的气候政策并非如此。
注意：
1.plaudits 掌声
2.marginal 边缘化的，微不足道的
今年早些时候，白宫批评财政部气候中心不作为，并且请出那些为了化石燃料项目没能停止向国际货币基金组织借贷的机构。拜登希望耶伦能够正式推行一项碳税，以及一项排放税，这项排放税是欧盟效仿美国，在进口商品运入国境时候对商品征收的。
注意：
1.press for 推动
2.levy on 征收
然后是金融稳定监督委员会的避雷针，这是一个由财政部长领导的监管主管小组。FSOC成立于2008年金融危机之后，负责识别和应对全系统的金融威胁。
耶伦2021年开始行动，识别气候变化是否影响金融稳定，与 FSOC会员联系，着手收集数据关于受影响的金融公司的头寸和基础设施情况。这项工作正在进行的时候，并没有其他工作开展，这使得 Public Citizen（一家鼓励消费的公司） 的气候项目总监 David Arkush 称呼耶伦的在 FSOC 的领导力为“更多让人失望”。
注意：
1.hit the ground running 开始行动，起跑
2.major disappointment 更多的是失望
从国际层面而言，耶伦认为财政部意识到，“在全球范围内腾挪资源来解决气候变化，是非常重要的，不仅仅对于美国而言。” 中低收入国家将会需要大量的、富裕国家的金融支持，来转移化石燃料（带来的环境威胁），于此同时经济还必须增长。
目前，腾挪（资金支持）气候金融，在那些带动真实的全球能源转移（项目）面前，而显得渺小。每年全世界范围的清洁能源投资，必须在2030年时上升到 4万亿美元，才能满足2050年的净零排放标准，依据国际能源协会的解释。
纳蒂克研究与发展中心（NRDC）的 Thwaites 直指今年3月，硅谷银行倒闭差一点引发国家级别的银行危机。监管在本周五逮捕了这家银行（相关人员），官方也深知自己将面临一场潜在的大屠杀，在下周一市场和银行重新营业的时候。因此，耶伦立即行动，周一早上，子弹被躲过了。
注意：
1.NRDC 纳蒂克研究与发展中心(Natick Research and Development Center)
2.bloodbath 大屠杀
3.leapt into action 立即行动
Janet Yellen is running out of time to make a difference on climate
By Christopher Condon and Saijel Kishan
Janet Yellen planted a flag during her confirmation hearing in January 2021. Climate change, she declared, was an “existential threat,” and as Treasury secretary, she would make it a focus of her work.
Since taking office, she’s warned of the danger to the economy and financial system. She’s urged Congress and foreign governments in the rich world to do more to help poorer countries adapt to global warming, and thrown the Treasury behind implementing President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, seeking to squeeze the most from the sprawling new law.
Yellen is the “best ally of climate action in the entire Biden administration,” according to Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, an outspoken climate hawk.
In short, no US Treasury secretary has made climate change a higher priority than has Yellen. For some that’s a great relief. But for others it’s a distinction that’s too easy to claim. Critics argue Yellen hasn’t done enough to push for better oversight of climate risks to the financial system or worked hard enough to mobilize capital in the global race to embrace clean energy.
Her window is closing as the 2024 presidential election draws nearer. Meanwhile, the past summer of damaging heat waves, wildfires and floods underscores the threat of climate chaos, with major insurers curbing their business in some hard-hit states.
“She has elevated climate in a way that’s very welcome,” said Joe Thwaites, an international climate finance expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But the Treasury really hasn’t pulled out all the stops.”
In an interview with Bloomberg Green, Yellen, 77, rejected that criticism. “We’re working as fast as we can to move this agenda forward. You’ll remember for the previous four years the United States was nowhere, was actively opposing climate. We’ve turned the ship 180 degrees around.”
Yellen will speak Tuesday at a climate finance forum on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. (The event is hosted by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic organization of Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg News.)
In many ways, Yellen is as good a Treasury pick as climate advocates might have hoped for. She’s got a track record on climate that goes back to the 1990s, when she served in the Clinton administration as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Now, at the Treasury, Yellen stands at the center of the administration’s economic, fiscal and financial regulatory policymaking. As one of the world’s most prominent economists, she understands the power of using financial incentives, instead of government interdiction, to shape the behavior of companies and households, drawing them into the climate effort with carrots over sticks.
That shows up in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which is projected to lower US greenhouse gas emissions to a level 40% below where they stood in 2005.
“It needs to be something that’s effective, but it also needs to be something that can command widespread support in the country,” Yellen said of the IRA. “And I think President Biden was absolutely right that an approach that involves more carrots than sticks is one that could get enough support, and generate enough activity, that it would be an effective program.”
Criticisms about IRA and its implementation from environmentalists are marginal — indeed, it’s drawing mostly plaudits. That’s not true for Yellen in other areas central to climate policy.
Whitehouse earlier this year criticized the Treasury’s climate hub for inaction and called out the agency for failing to stop lending by the International Monetary Fund for fossil-fuel energy projects. He wants Yellen to press for a carbon tax, as well as a US mirror of an emissions tax the European Union will levy on goods imported into the bloc.
Then there’s the lightning rod of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a panel of regulatory chiefs headed by the Treasury secretary. FSOC was created after the 2008 financial crisis and charged with identifying and addressing systemwide financial threats.
Yellen hit the ground running in 2021, identifying climate change as a threat to financial stability and calling on FSOC members to begin gathering data on the exposure of financial firms and infrastructure to that risk. And while that work has continued, not much else has happened, leading David Arkush, climate program director at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, to call Yellen’s leadership of FSOC a “major disappointment.”
On the international level, Yellen said the Treasury recognizes “it’s critically important beyond the United States to mobilize resources globally to address climate change.” Middle- and low-income countries will need massive financial support from rich nations to shift away from fossil fuels while growing their economies.
The climate finance currently being mobilized is dwarfed by what’s needed to drive a genuine, global energy transition. Annual clean energy investment worldwide must rise to $4 trillion by 2030 to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.
NRDC’s Thwaites pointed to what happened in March when the failure of Silicon Valley Bank threatened to trigger a national banking crisis. The bank was seized by regulators on a Friday and officials knew they were facing a potential bloodbath when markets and banks reopened Monday. So Yellen leapt into action. By Monday morning, the bullet was dodged.
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