气象学家称全球变暖已不可避免，但我们可以减小它的程度

Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so long that they can no longer stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new United Nations scientific report has concluded.

自19世纪以来，人类已经使地球温度升高了约1.1摄氏度，主要原因是人类大量燃烧化石燃料。这已对全世界造成了灾难性的后果：仅今年夏天，空前的热浪就导致美国和加拿大数百人死亡，洪水摧残着德国和中国；西伯利亚、土耳其和希腊的野火失控。

Humans have already heated the planet by roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 19th century, largely by burning coal, oil and gas for energy. And the consequences can be felt across the globe: This summer alone, blistering heat waves have killed hundreds of people in the United States and Canada, floods have devastated Germany and China, and wildfires have raged out of control in Siberia, Turkey and Greece.

但根据联合国召集的科学家组成的政府间气候变化专门委员会(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change，简称IPCC）周一发布的报告，这仅仅是个开始。即使各国今天开始大幅减少温室气体排放，全球在未来20年间也会变热1.5度，我们正面临着无法逃避的酷热的未来。

But that’s only the beginning, according to the report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations. Even if nations started sharply cutting emissions today, total global warming is likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades, a hotter future that is now essentially locked in.

利兹大学(University of Leeds)的气候科学家皮尔斯·福斯特(Piers Forster)是协助撰写这份报告的数百名国际专家之一，他说:“我们可以预测，在未来二三十年里，极端天气的出现频率将大幅增加。很不幸，那时候我们将面临比现在更糟糕的情况。”

“We can expect a significant jump in extreme weather over the next 20 or 30 years,” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds and one of hundreds of international experts who helped write the report. “Things are unfortunately likely to get worse than they are today.”

Read more at The New York Times
翻译：墨淞凌@STARSET_Mirror翻译组
审校：CDN@STARSET_Mirror翻译组