1 . There are two distinctive types of electric buses making their way along Nanjing Xi Lu, one of Shanghai’s busiest roads. The first is a fleet of blue trolleybuses that serve bus route number 20, a line set up by a British-run transport company in 1928. They use poles to receive electricity from wires overhead and have kept the route running in this way for nearly a century. But while the historic electric buses are a reminder of Europe’s past technological innovation, the new buses traveling alongside them are symbols of China’s contemporary net-zero ambition. These modern electric buses powered by lithium batteries (锂电池) , were introduced in Shanghai in 2014. They offer a smoother ride, especially during starts and stops. Widely used across China, these buses are key to the country’s EV transition and are influencing the global shift towards green transportation.
The most recent data available shows that China in 2018 was still the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the global transport sector, responsible for 11%, and behind only the United States, which accounted for 21%. After around two decades of government support, China now boasts the world’s largest market for e-buses, making up more than 95% of global stock. At the end of 2022, China’s Ministry of Transport announced that more than three-quarters (77% or 542, 600) of all urban buses in the country were new energy vehicles. The speed of this transition was remarkable.
So far, however, the Chinese cities with the most successful e-bus introduction — such as Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai — all have moderate weather and are relatively flat. To take its e-bus campaign to the next level, China faces challenges. For one thing, it is difficult to bring fleets to cities such as Hong Kong, which — like London — have double-deckers. These two-storeyed vehicles are “very hard” to electrify, because they are heavier, use more energy, and so need bigger batteries, reducing the number of passengers they can carry. Cold weather is a problem, too, as it can make a battery’s charging time longer and its range shorter. The reason China has not achieved 100% electrification for its buses is its northern regions, which have cold winters, says Xue Lulu, a transportation expert at the World Resources Institute China.
1. How does the author describe the two types of electric buses in the first paragraph?| A．By contrasting their historical significance and technological advancements. |
| B．By highlighting their roles in protecting the environment and lasting use. |
| C．By focusing merely on their technical details and performance. |
| D．By explaining their operational challenges and requirements. |
| A．The global impact of carbon dioxide emissions. |
| B．The progress of China in reducing CO2 emissions. |
| C．The different emission levels of China and the USA. |
| D．The need for more government support in e-bus market. |
| A．Poor winter weather conditions. | B．Lack of transportation experts. |
| C．Short charging time of the battery. | D．Heavier and bigger bus bodies. |
| A．Worklife. | B．Culture. | C．Travel. | D．Earth. |
2 .
| A．The harm done by single-use plastics. |
| B．The topic for the woman’s composition. |
| C．Environmental issues. |
| D．Some recent hot news. |
1. 活动目的；
2. 活动时间、地点；
3. 活动内容。
注意：写作词数应为80词左右。
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Wildlife Conservation Association
4 . Catherine Krestyn furnished (布置家具)her home mainly with hard rubbish, such as the chairs, doors and lamps, which have been collected from the street where she lives. And it’s a way of life she’s sharing with her community in the hope of making a difference.
Catherine leads a 6,000-strong online group called Boroondara Hard Rubbish Rehome, where members upload pictures of their hard rubbish piles for eager locals to find. She started the group in 2022 with her childhood friend Jennie Irving, hoping to build a community of thrift (节俭)where they lived. The pair have stopped more than 7,000 kg of hard rubbish going to landfill since they founded the group.
Some items are ready as they are, like chairs and lamps, and others take a bit of effort to clean up, like the old, wooden doors.
Local teacher Ruth Polgar discovered the group while surfing the Internet and has since decorated her classroom with second-hand items, including artwork she has rehomed from a neighbour. “We regularly take unneeded items from the group and use them for our school projects,” she says.
Running the group can be really challenging for Catherine. But she doesn’t resent those who have to let go of their possessions because of stressful circumstances. “If you’re downsizing or if you’re clearing an old house, quite often you’re desperate for access to easy options,” she says. “Hard rubbish piles are often that option.”
All Catherine wants to do is give her community a way to reduce their waste, and to send a message to those in charge that things need to urgently change.
“The government has big targets around sustainable development leading into 2030. We want to start speeding that up even sooner,” she says. “We’re suffering from our own waste really, so anything that we can all do on a practical level helps. We should first make lifestyle choices and be prepared to go second-hand.”
1. Why did Catherine set up Boroondara Hard Rubbish Rehome?| A．To create a community of thrift. | B．To donate her collection to charity. |
| C．To collect hard rubbish for locals. | D．To decorate the houses for the homeless. |
| A．She prefers second-hand items. | B．She buys items on the Internet. |
| C．She supports Catherine’s cause. | D．She teaches art at a local school. |
| A．Feel angry about. | B．Feel pleased with. |
| C．Show sympathy for. | D．Show interest in. |
| A．Setting ourselves a big goal. | B．Giving throwaways a second life. |
| C．Meeting the government’s requirements. | D．Replacing old furniture regularly. |
5 . BANGKOK - The world is “failing” on a commitment to stop and reverse (彻底改变) deforestation by 2030, with global losses increasing last year, a group of NGOs and researchers warned Tuesday.
In 2021, leaders from over 100 countries and territories -representing the vast majority of the world’s forests-promised to stop and reverse forest loss by 2030. But an annual assessment released Tuesday found global deforestation actually increased by four percent last year, and the world remains well off track to meet the 2030 commitment. “That 2030 goal is not just nice to have, it’s essential for maintaining a livable climate for humanity,” warned Erin Matson, a lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment.
Forests are not only key habitats for animal life but serve as important regulators of the global climate and carbon sponges that take in the emissions human activity generates. However, deforestation last year was over 20 percent higher than it should have been to meet the leaders’ commitment, with 6.6 million hectares of forest lost, much of it primary forest in tropical regions.
“Data year over year does tend to shift. So one year is not the be-all, end-all,” said Matson. “But what is really important is the trend. And since the baseline of 2018 to 2020, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
The assessment was not universally depressing, with about 50 countries considered on course to end deforestation. In particular, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia saw “dramatic reductions” in forest loss. Those gains are at risk however, the report warns. In Brazil, for instance, while there has been renewed interest in protecting the Amazon, another key ecosystem - the Cerrado savannah - has instead become a target.
The report praised new rules introduced by the European Union intended to block the imports of commodities(商品) that drive deforestation. But it called for stronger global action, including more money to conserve forests, and the end of subsidies to sectors like agriculture that drive deforestation.
“The world is failing forests with disastrous consequences on a global scale,” said Fran Price, WWF’s global forest lead. “Since the global commitment was made, an area of tropical forest the size of Denmark has been lost. We want to see nature and forest high on the agenda!”
1. What does the assessment indicate?| A．Tough policies should be introduced. | B．Deforestation is intensifying. |
| C．Commitment should be taken seriously. | D．Global warming is worsening. |
| A．It is normal that data changes sharply. | B．The assessment is far from accurate. |
| C．Emphasis should be put on the trend. | D．To have a clear goal in place matters. |
| A．The widespread damage to forests. | B．Proper measures yet-to-be-taken. |
| C．The ban on nature-related products. | D．Some bright sides of the situation. |
| A．Forest conservation is a priority. | B．Forest restoration is a long-term project. |
| C．Forest destruction is just regional. | D．Forest assessment should be globalized. |
China drives world renewables capacity addition in 2023
China was the major driving force behind the world’s rapid
China’s installed capacity of renewable energy exceeded 1.45 billion kilowatts in 2023,
China has several advantages that others do not possess, including the ability
7 . I fell in love with rhinos when I worked in a zoo in the 80s, and spent much of the next 20 years as the keeper of the largest captive (圈养的) group of rare black rhinos.
There’s a popular misconception that rhinos are aggressive and stupid, but I found them sensitive and affectionate animals. Weighing over a ton, black rhinos are unexpectedly agile (敏捷的) and have an unpredictable nature — but, given reassurance, they tend to believe people. In the past few decades, their numbers have dropped dramatically. In recent years, I’ve helped look after rhinos being moved to the reserve so they can form new populations in countries that have few left. Last year, I helped on a project to fly five black rhinos from a private reserve in South Africa to the Serengeti National Park. Once there, the animals had to be kept captive for a few weeks to adapt to the new environment, in which time they lived in “bomas” — wooden enclosures with “bedrooms”, designed to create a calm space.
A couple of weeks before their planned release, the sky filled with smoke. Watching the flames rushing through the bush toward the bomas, I froze. Terrified that it would catch fire, my instinct was to release the rhinos, but they hadn’t yet been fitted with transmitters (发信器). If I let them out into a bushfire and they were injured, we’d have great difficulty tracking them down. So I dashed back to the bomas and called the rhinos to the bedrooms. Sensing the fear in my voices, they moved without hesitation and remained astonishingly calm. It was crucial the rhinos didn’t panic — they can easily hurt each other if they do.
That we and the rhinos had escaped safe and sound was a miracle. The teamwork of everybody there played a large part, and the rhinos were very much a part of that team. The relationships we’d built with them had proved crucial — had they or we panicked, all our work would have been in vain.
1. What does the author think of the rhinos?| A．They are trusting animals. | B．They are highly organized. |
| C．Their habitats are under threat. | D．Their adaptability needs improving. |
| A．To assist rhinos to settle in. | B．To boost tourism in the reserve. |
| C．To avoid rhinos’ aggressive behavior. | D．To stop rhinos from fleeing. |
| A．By setting them free. | B．By tracking them down. |
| C．By driving them into bomas. | D．By fitting them with the transmitters. |
| A．The keepers’ timely alarm. | B．The inborn nature of rhinos. |
| C．The faith in the keepers’ heart. | D．The teamwork between the keepers and the rhinos. |
8 . As awareness of climate change grows, so does the desire to do something about it. But the scale of the problems it causes—from wildfires to melting glaciers to droughts—can seem utterly overwhelming. It can be hard to make a connection between our everyday lives and the survival of polar bears, let alone how we as individuals can help turn the situation around.
One way to gain a quantifiable understanding of the impacts of our actions, for good and bad, is through what is known as a carbon footprint. But while the concept is gaining traction, it is not always fully understood. According to Mike Berners-Lee, a professor at Lancaster University in the UK and author of The Carbon Footprint of Everything, it is “the sum total of all the greenhouse gas emissions that had to take place in order for a product to be produced or for an activity to take place.”
What steps a person can take to reduce their personal footprint the most of course depends on the kind of lifestyle they presently live, and the same actions are not equally effective for everyone. Berners-Lee notes that, “for some people, flying may be 10 percent of their footprint, for some people it’s zero, and for some it’s such a huge number that it should be the only thing they should be thinking about.”
It isn’t easy to calculate a carbon footprint and it has been claimed that the earliest such calculator appeared in 2004 as part of the “Beyond Petroleum” campaign of oil giant BP—a fact that causes some observers to criticize the pressure to reduce personal carbon footprints as a “sham” to “promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals.”
“I would say personal carbon footprint calculators are a useful tool to assess the impact of your immediate actions.” Berners-Lee says. “But what’s much more important than your personal carbon footprint is your climate shadow, which aims to paint a picture of the full sum of one’s choices and the impact they have on the planet. For example, how you vote, where you work, how you invest your money, and how much you talk about climate change.
1. What does the underlined word “traction” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．attention | B．insight | C．control | D．power |
| A．By presenting a fact | B．By making a comparison |
| C．By clarifying a concept | D．By giving suggestions |
| A．unclear | B．favorable | C．indifferent | D．disapproving |
| A．Tools are more important than choices. | B．Only individuals are responsible for climate change. |
| C．Climate shadow covers a broad range of actions. | D．Calculating carbon footprint is the most effective. |
9 . If you haven’t taken down your Christmas tree yet, no worries. Here’s an idea: have you ever thought about eating it?
Julia Georgallis has some recipes. Over the last five years, she’s been preparing carefully for Christmas dinners in London with a friend. “How can we make something sustainable around Christmas time? What can we cat? What’s the thing that no one eats and that somehow represents Christmas? And then we just decided on Christmas trees,” Georgallis says.
She turned it into a book, How to Eat Your Christmas Tree. And her idea is that it’s not that odd. Some people enjoy Christmas wine. Some people like to go shopping and most people can get behind saving the planet.
“What I aimed for this book to do, really, was to get people thinking about the odd ways that they can be more sustainable in their daily lives,” Georgallis says.
“Eating Christmas trees isn’t going to save any animals in danger or freeze any ice caps. But if we start to think about everything that we do as a whole, then that builds up, you know, and that helps,” she says.
Most of the recipes in her book use the needles from the tree. “You’d use the needles like a herb,” she says.
“And different Christmas trees kind of have different flavors. They’re quite subtle, but they do have different flavors. So fir (冷杉), which is a really popular choice of Christmas trees, gives people better feeling and atmosphere. And then you have pine, which is a little bit more delicate.”
A warning: some Christmas trees are poisonous if eaten — like cypress and cedars. And be sure your tree wasn’t sprayed with pesticides (杀虫剂) and other chemicals. “So if you have any doubt that your Christmas tree might not have been grown to eat, then maybe don’t eat it,” Georgallis says.
And, of course, don’t even think about eating your artificial tree!
So, with all those instructions and with the appropriate tree, what could we cook? Well, Georgallis’ book has all sorts of recipes for different foods and drinks. Let’s open up the world’s cuisine with simple ingredients!
1. What’s the main purpose of Georgallis’ book?| A．To tell people not to buy real trees. | B．To inspire people to be more eco-friendly. |
| C．To teach people how to enjoy Christmas wine. | D．To encourage people to throw away odd traditions. |
| A．Artificial trees can also be cooked. |
| B．Eating Christmas trees does good to saving animals. |
| C．Different trees have different features and tastes. |
| D．All Christmas trees have their own ways to be cooked. |
| A．Tips for choosing Christmas trees. | B．Warnings for cooking Christmas meals. |
| C．Comparison between real and artificial trees. | D．Recipes for different foods with Christmas trees. |
| A．A diary. | B．A novel. | C．A scientific report. | D．A lifestyle magazine. |
Are we greening our cities, or just greenwashing them?
Architecture and urban design is chasing a green fever dream. Everywhere you look, there are plans for “sustainable” buildings, futuristic eco-cities and aquaponic farms on the roof, each promising to add a green touch to the modern city.
All of these are surely good ideas at some level. They are trying to repair some of the damage our lifestyle has done to the planet. But, despite the rhetoric of reuniting the city with nature, today’s green urban dream is too often about bringing a technologically controlled version of nature into the city and declaring the problem solved, rather than looking at the deeper causes of our environmental and urban problems.
One of the most striking examples is Apple’s “spaceship” campus now under construction in Silicon Valley. Though it seems to be sustainable and energy efficient—80 percent of its 175-acre site is preserved for landscaping, it is by any measure a huge, expensive and massively resource-intensive project. As a suburban white-collar workplace, it must include vast garages for 13,000 Apple employees. Thus, it will leave no smaller environmental footprint than a traditional office park.
Designing a perfect green building or eco-city isn’t enough to save the world. Although our buildings, like our cars, have been inefficient environmentally, architecture isn’t directly responsible for humanity’s disastrous environmental impacts. An economic system based on the destruction of nature is the real problem. No green building can help us repair the ecological damage we have caused, nor can any number of aquaponic farms bring us back to the real nature.
Instead of adding “nature” to the urban lifestyle, architects may work to design better relationships between our cities and nature, and to promote just relationships between the people in them.
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