林德宜：中国绿色科技可救洛杉矶林火

两篇有关世界不同地区事件的新闻，反映了先进绿色技术应用之必要，以解救各国避免环境生态进一步恶化，以及在气候变迁和不可持续发展下引发的危机进一步加剧。

这两起事件是造成生命和财产损失的美国洛杉矶林火，以及影响印度新德里及其周边地区人口的不太明显但同样致命的空气污染。

在洛杉矶林火事件中，目前被烧毁的面积超过了旧金山的面积，对仍在肆虐的大火，其带来的损失，目前估计为1500亿美元（约6750亿令吉）。这也成了加利福尼亚州史上损失最惨重的灾难。目前，这场林火灾害的损失在美国排名第二，仅次于飓风卡特里娜 (Katrina)灾害，卡特里娜灾害造成约2000亿美元（约9000亿令吉）的损失。卡特里娜飓风主要是一场不可避免的自然灾害，与目前的洛杉矶林火相比，洛杉矶的灾害在起因、蔓延范围和严重程度上都更可以避免。

新德里空气污染问题尽管已存在数十年，但其影响仍有待全面研究。一些方面估计，印度每年因空气污染导致的生产力损失、缺勤和过早死亡案例，造成的损失超过1000亿美元（约4500亿令吉），其中影响最大的是北部地区。芝加哥大学能源政策研究所2023年的报告发现，新德里居民可能因空气污染平均减少11.9年的寿命。孟加拉、巴基斯坦和尼泊尔也出现了类似的可怕情况。请参阅 https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/people-can-lose-more-than-5-years-of-their-lives-due-to-air-pollution-study/。

忽视房间里大象

目前，洛杉矶各方如预料般沿著党派政治立场，对最严重山火事件互相指责，并聚焦于对方领导力与政策的弱点和失败。尽管管理不善和人为因素在火灾和许多类似灾难中发挥了作用，但科学观点越来越倾向于将气候变迁和极端天气，视为主要致成灾难因素。

无论意见团体对气候变迁在经历前所未有的极端火灾、干旱、洪水、空气品质问题等地区的重要性的看法如何不同，毫无疑问，采用绿色技术可以带来积极改变。毫无疑问，在缺水干旱地区广泛应用有效的绿色技术，以及中国无人机可改变洛杉矶林火局面。

严峻现实是，世界各地须面对著人类制造出的前所未有危机，以及其扩散的影响，这些危机带来的损失和影响日益高昂且具有毁灭性。同时，乐观的现实是，我们拥有适当的绿色科技工具，可以更好地管理气候变迁和人为环境危机和议题。

美国和西方试图消除中国绿色科技

为什么没有更多地采用绿色技术来建立一个更永续的世界并减轻气候变迁的影响，原因有很多，例如缺乏知识和意识、政策和法规落后于技术进步、缺乏基础设施支持、高昂的初始投资成本以及地缘政治竞争所带来的政治阻力。

最后一项因素，地缘政治竞争和冲突尤其重要，这与中国作为经济、制造业和贸易超级大国的崛起有关；美国和西方国家害怕并拒绝接受这影响世界秩序的变化；以及随之出台打倒中国的运动。在气候变迁和永续发展领域，这可从西方对采用中国处于世界领先地位的创新绿色技术反应中反映出来。

我们可以从美国、欧盟及其一些西方盟国，为排除中国电动车而采取的高关税和其他排他性政策和措施中清楚地看到这一点，譬如电动车相对于内燃机在温室气体排放上有著不可否认的优势。

类似的排除政策，也实施到出口到世界其他地区的中国先进绿色技术身上。这包括太阳能光伏（PV）、风力涡轮机、锂离子电池以及许多其他新兴技术，例如低排放氢、碳捕获解决方案、电网规模能源储存和智慧电网技术，这些技术可以为更绿色世界铺平道路。

实际上，西方最初对中国的绿色技术革命是表示欢迎的。2019年，促进再生能源采用和永续利用的政府间组织，国际再生能源机构（IRENA）赞许地指出，“没有哪个国家比中国更有能力成为世界再生能源超级大国。总的来说，中国现在是世界上最大的太阳能电池板、风力涡轮机、电池和电动车的生产商、出口商和安装商，处于全球能源转型的前沿。”

今天，欧美不再欢迎并利用中国的绿色科技产品来帮助世界实现联合国第二十九次气候变迁会议设定的气候变迁目标（最近一次会议在2024年，于阿塞拜疆首都巴库召开，呼吁透过动员气候融资来限制全球暖化），反之人们看到美国和其他西方政府对中国绿色技术和再生能源进步及领导地位的反应，发生了180度甚至更大的转变。

这种转变被认为有助于保护西方国内绿色技术生产商，可是这不仅会阻碍减少温室气体排放和脱碳经济的努力。这也可能为我们在洛杉矶、新德里和世界其他地方看到的类似环境危机和灾难埋下伏笔。

展望未来，一个令人欣喜的发展是，金砖国家成为世界秩序的关键参与者以及中国在其中的角色。这不仅会改变全球政治和经济的游戏规则。这也有潜能帮助世界迈向更绿色、更永续的未来。

林德宜《中国绿色科技可救洛杉矶林火》原文：China’s Green Tech Would Have Helped in LA Fires

Two news reports covering events in different parts of the world highlight the need for the application of green technology advances to save countries from further deterioration in their environment and the worsening of crises arising from climate change and unsustainable development practices.

The two events are the fires in Los Angeles (LA) with its toll on lives and property and the less obvious - but just as deadly - agency of air pollution assailing the population of Delhi and its surrounding areas.

In LA, the current area burnt down exceeds the size of San Francisco with an early cost estimate of the still raging fires assessing it at US$150 billion. This makes it the most costly disaster in Californian history. It is second in the United States (US) for now to Hurricane Katrina’s US$200 billion estimated damage. Katrina's was mainly an unavoidable natural disaster compared with the present LA one which was more avoidable in its causation, spread and severity.

Although a decades old problem, the impact of Delhi’s air pollution is still yet to be comprehensively studied. Some estimates have placed India’s air pollution costs at over US$100 billion annually from lost productivity, work absences and premature deaths, with the greatest loss situated in the northern region. A 2023 report from the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute found that Delhi residents may lose an average of 11.9years of life to air pollution. A similar frightening scenario has been found for Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. 
See https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/people-can-lose-more-than-5-years-of-their-lives-due-to-air-pollution-study/.

LA Fire Blame Game: Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

For now the blame game in LA for the historic fires has predictably developed along partisan political lines focusing on leadership and policy weaknesses and failures. Although mismanagement and human factors play a role in what unfolded in the fires and many similar disasters, scientific opinion is increasingly inclined towards climate change and extreme weather events as a major causative factor.

However divergent the views that opposing opinion groups have on the importance of climate change in areas experiencing unprecedented extreme fires, droughts, floods, air quality issues, etc., there can be no disagreement that the take up of green technology can make a positive difference. There is little doubt too that the widespread application of best practice examples of green technology effective in water scarce arid regions and China’s drones could have made a difference in LA.

The grim reality for the world is that societies and countries everywhere have to cope with an unprecedented proliferation of crisis developments of our making that are increasingly expensive and devastating in their cost and impact. At the same time, the optimistic reality is that we have the tools in appropriate and green technology for the better management of climate change and man-made environmental crises and problems.

US and the West Attempts at Cancellation of China’s Green Technology

Why green technology has not been more employed to build a more sustainable world and mitigate the impact of climate change is due to a myriad of reasons such as lack of knowledge and awareness, policies and regulations lagging behind technological advances, lack of supportive infrastructure, concerns over high initial investment costs, and political pushback arising from geopolitical rivalry.

The last factor of geopolitical rivalry and conflict is especially important and is related to the rise of China as an economic, manufacturing and trade superpower; the fear and refusal of the US and the West to accept this change affecting the world order; and the consequential campaign to bring China down. In the climate change and sustainable development sectors, this factor is evident from the response of the West to the adoption of innovations in green technology of which China is a world leader.

We can clearly see this in the high tariff and other exclusionary policies and measures introduced by the US, European Union (EU) and some of its western allies to keep out Chinese electric vehicles (EV) despite the undeniable advantages of EVs over internal combustion engines (ICE) in greenhouse gas emissions.

A similar exclusionary process is taking place with other Chinese green technology advances that are exported to the world. This includes solar photovoltaic (PVs), wind turbines, lithium ion batteries, and a host of other emerging technologies such as low-emission hydrogen, carbon capture solutions, grid-scale energy storage and smart grid technologies that can pave the way to a greener world.

The West had initially welcomed China’s green technology revolution. In 2019, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organization that promotes the adoption and sustainable use of renewable energy, noted approvingly that “No country has put itself in a better position to become the world’s renewable energy superpower than China. In aggregate, it is now the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, placing it at the forefront of the global energy transition.”

Today, instead of welcoming and leveraging China’s green technology products to help the world attain the climate change targets set up by the twenty nine United Nations climate change conferences (the latest for 2024 recently convened in Baku calls for limiting global warming through mobilizing financing for climate change mitigation activities), we are seeing a 180 and more degree turn in the US and other western government response to China’s green technology and renewable energy advances and leadership.

This turnaround which has been justified as helping shield the domestic producers of green technology in the West will not only obstruct efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and decarbonize economies. It could also provide the setting for similar environmental crises and disasters that we are seeing in LA, Delhi and other parts of the world.

Looking ahead, one hopeful development is the emergence of BRICS as a key player in the world order and China's role in it. This is not only a game changer in global politics and economics. It has the potential to help the world to a greener and environmentally more sustainable future.