彭博推送 | 当气候问题变成政治议题
由 Jingyi 翻译，百度翻译助力。
By Lauren Rosenthal and Mary Hui
01 当气候问题变成政治议题
一个和明信片大小一致的旗子放在每个参与者桌子上，红白蓝色条状巴拉圭共和国国旗，在很多缺乏光线的工作台上，在美国国家海洋大气层署，不坐落在华盛顿，但是处理的事情也很复杂。
- affixed to 附于 affixed to each forecaster's desk
- ultramarine 群青。最古老最鲜艳的蓝色颜料
- Paraguay 巴拉圭
- drab 没有光泽的，死气沉沉的。drearily dull； dull light brown color 无光泽的颜色
- NOAA 美国海洋和大气管理局 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
他们代表着一些几十个同胞，这些人将他们的科学家送到美国，让美国人训练，自从 NOAA 在 1988 年开启国际席位以来。今天，这个项目已经是关键资源，关于美国软实力的（见证），提供免费数据，以及专业知识给到一些国家，这些国家渴望高质量的预测，随着气候变化将天气带到新的极端。但是，NOAA的影响以及融资方面，是受威胁的，随着特朗普准备继续就任总统，创造了新的领衔国家的开幕式，中国。
中国方面是很清晰的，他们将气候科学视作地缘政治的战斗场地。习近平说到，他希望，中国能成为气候领域的领跑者，并引用中国经典名句“天不言而四时行，地不语而百物生。”，中国是将气候作为国家财产，来赢得世界的第二大经济体，在全球气象逻辑执政领域，是比较激进的。会议结束时候，中国表示了其在气候上的外交支出，从 2013 年到 2023 年多支出了 50%，依据中国的测试名单，提供其他国家相关财政支持，支持提升对中国技术和服务的使用。
习近平 2020 年雄心峰会上的讲话
01 When Weather Gets Political
By Lauren Rosenthal and Mary Hui
Postcard-sized country flags affixed to each forecaster’s desk — ultramarine and gold for Barbados, the red-white-and-blue bars of Paraguay — stand out among the drab workstations at a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration complex outside Washington, DC.
They represent just some of the dozens of nations that have sent their scientists to be trained by US experts since NOAA started its International Desks in 1988. Today, the program is a crucial source of American soft power, providing free data and expertise to countries desperate for high-quality forecasts as climate change brings the weather to new extremes. But NOAA’s influence and funding are under threat as Donald Trump prepares to return to office, creating an opening for a new global leader: China.
Beijing is clear it sees climate science as a geopolitical battleground. President Xi Jinping has said he wants China to become a “weather superpower,” and made it a national priority to win the world’s second-largest economy a bigger say in global meteorological governance. To that end, the country boosted spending on climate diplomacy by nearly 500% from 2013 to 2023, following a tried-and-tested playbook of offering other nations financial help and support to boost usage of Chinese technology and services.
“We can see with other nations that it’s an economic competition,” says Craig McLean, a former acting NOAA chief scientist who served in the Trump and Biden administrations. “If we choose to give that up,” he says, “you’re going to lose your competitive edge.”
China’s play for weather dominance comes as NOAA faces an uncertain future under the incoming Trump administration. The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy roadmap says NOAA should be “broken up and downsized.” It calls for much of the agency’s climate research to be “disbanded” and for weather forecasting to be completely privatized. Some former NOAA officials worry those plans will be a blueprint for weakening the agency, especially as Trump taps authors of the manifesto for influential cabinet roles.
A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said the president-elect “had nothing to do with Project 2025.”
Predicting the weather is a global endeavor, requiring nations to exchange vast amounts of data to feed scientific models that span the planet. If Trump dismantles NOAA’s weather forecasting operations or stops sharing valuable climate feeds, experts say the loss would be felt around the world — but it would be most painful for developing countries that have relied on free US tools and training for decades.
For as long as countries have competed for power, the weather has been deeply intertwined with military and national security interests. It’s now primed to emerge as another flashpoint in the US-China rivalry that already dominates technology and trade. In recent essays, officials at the China Meteorological Administration have concluded that competition between the world’s major powers is getting fiercer as climate conditions become more “complex and severe.”
As nearly 200 countries gathered in Azerbaijan in November for the COP29 climate summit, China took the opportunity to unveil a splashy new project. It will offer more than 2,000 training fellowships to scientists from developing countries to study with Chinese experts, to help them better predict threats such as heat waves, floods and droughts.
The head of China’s state weather agency, Chen Zhenlin, likened the program to “teaching people to fish,” saying it would help developing nations while also spreading “Chinese wisdom.”
The initiative seeks to build goodwill and is “obviously about trade and influence and geopolitics, there’s no escaping that,” says Ben Churchill, director of the World Meteorological Organization’s regional office for Asia and the South-West Pacific. Still, it’s a “valuable investment” even if it comes with tradeoffs, he says, such as poor countries potentially feeling indebted to China.
02 More from Green
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The sustainability-linked bond market faces a slow demise. Deals have decreased by 46% this year, with only $37.6 billion raised so far, prompting bankers and investors to question whether the $319 billion market will ever regain favor.
Confusing food labels are adding to waste. Federal agencies in the US are requesting information from the food industry on labeling practices and research on how consumers perceive date labels. The effort is a crucial first step toward possible regulation, which could save food from being unnecessarily trashed.
03 Worth a Listen
General Electric Co was officially founded in 1892, when several of inventor Thomas Edison's ventures were consolidated into one company. From then on, it was a behemoth. But now that’s changed: A break-up that began last year has concluded with GE splitting off into three separate companies. Scott Strazik is the CEO of GE Vernova, which focuses on wind turbines, nuclear power, and carbon capture, as well as grid solutions such as software and batteries. Strazik joins Zero to talk about how the company is in the “early innings of an investment super cycle,” and how it intends to overcome difficulties in offshore wind. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.
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