5 . The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report. It stated that the world is quickly running out of time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the level widely agreed to be the conservative, safety-first goal to prevent serious climate harm. To get there, the world would have to cut current emissions (排放物) by 45 percent by 2030. That sounds absurdly unlikely.
But before we give in to despair, we should remember that the technology to address climate change is going along at high speed. The largest source of US carbon emissions is transportation, and a Green New Deal program for motor vehicles would be quite straightforward.
The reason is simple: With some subsidies (补贴), electric cars and buses are cost- competitive with fossil-fuel vehicles. Electric buses have gone into the market at the greatest speed, because they are a logical choice for electrification. At the end of 2018, electric vehicles were displacing about 280,000 barrels of oil demand per day. That’s more than the whole consumption of Greece.
And the electric car market is also reaching maturity, with appealing designs, longer range, and a quickly-expanding rapid charging network in many countries. It’s worth emphasizing that most of the basic systems necessary to recharge electric vehicles already exist. People often tend to assume that we would need to replace every gas station, but virtually all homes and businesses already have an electrical connection which can be easily improved for fast charging. All that is needed to go fully electric is enough battery capacity and fast charging stations to deal with long trips.
Now America would have to repair its electricity production, rails, shipping, and so on to fully decarbonize (脱碳) the transportation sector. It will be considerably more difficult than simply rooting out fossil fuel vehicles from the market.
But greening America’s vehicles would be straightforward, relatively cheap, and a huge step forward on climate. The politics of climate change are so fearful that despair can seem logical, but the first step in achieving a tough goal is the firm belief that it can be done. And this particular step wouldn’t even be that tough.
1. What can we infer from the IPCC’s report?
| A．The world is suffering serious climate harm. |
| B．Global warming is growing out of our control. |
| C．We are too conservative to deal with global warming. |
| D．Cutting emissions is the easiest way to stop climate change. |
2. How can electric vehicles compete with fossil-fuel ones?
| A．By running at the greatest speed. |
| B．By changing the way of transportation. |
| C．By making consumers have logical choices. |
| D．By getting financial support from governments. |
3. What is people’s common misunderstanding about electric cars?
| A．They aren’t so efficient in reducing emissions. |
| B．There’s still much room for designing new ones. |
| C．There aren’t enough fast charging stations for them. |
| D．Home electrical connection can be used for charging them. |
4. What’s the author’s attitude towards greening America’s vehicles?
| A．Doubtful. | B．Critical. | C．Positive. | D．Uncaring. |
