歐盟碳排放基準價格大幅下跌

Carbon prices plunged yesterday in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, dealing a blow to the credibility of the European Union's carbon-trading scheme.

受哥本哈根氣候變化大會影響，碳排放價格昨日大幅下挫，沉重打擊了歐盟(EU)碳交易計劃的可信度。

Prices for carbon permits for December 2010 delivery, the benchmark contract for pricing European permits, dropped nearly 10 per cent in early trading, before recovering to end the day 8.6 per cent lower at €12.41.

2010年12月碳排放許可價格（為歐洲排放許可定價的基準合約）昨日早盤一度下跌近10%，收盤時略有回升，收于每噸12.41歐元，下跌8.6%。

Lower prices give companies less incentive to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas output. Analysts estimate that prices of more than €40 a tonne are required to stimulate investment in new low-carbon technologies.

碳排放價格越低，企業(yè)投資削減溫室氣體排放量的動力就越弱。據(jù)分析師們估算，每噸價格高于40歐元，才足以刺激對低碳新技術(shù)的投資。

Carbon traders blamed the price fall on the Copenhagen conference, which produced an accord among the world's biggest developed and developing countries to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, but omitted details on what those limits would be.

碳交易商將價格下跌歸咎于哥本哈根大會，世界上最大的一些發(fā)達國家和發(fā)展中國家在會上達成了限制各自溫室氣體排放的共識，但省略了此等限制的具體額度。

Governments now have a month to submit formal pledges on how far they will reduce their carbon output.

各國政府現(xiàn)在有一個月的時間來提交正式承諾，說明各自減排的力度。

“This [accord] is a very disappointing outcome,” said Trevor Sikorski, director at Barclays Capital. “I see nothing here that should drive investment in low-carbon technology.” He said that it was “bearish for the market and bearish for the world”.

“這個（共識）是一個非常令人失望的結(jié)果，”巴克萊資本(Barclays Capital)主管特雷弗·西科爾斯基(Trevor Sikorski)表示。“我沒有看到任何促進低碳技術(shù)投資的內(nèi)容。”他認為這“對于市場和整個世界而言都是悲觀的。”

The EU's carbon price was created under the bloc's emissions trading scheme, by which companies in energy-intensive industries are allocated trade-able permits to produce CO2. The number of permits issued is gradually ratcheted down, giving companies an incentive to cut their emissions in order to avoid having to buy extra permits from others.

歐盟的碳排放價格是在其排放交易計劃之下創(chuàng)立的。根據(jù)該計劃，能源密集型企業(yè)將分配得到排放二氧化碳的可交易許可。發(fā)放的許可數(shù)量會逐步減少，從而激勵企業(yè)減排，以免被迫從其它企業(yè)那里購買額外的排放許可。

One reason for yesterday's fall was that the EU did not raise its carbon-cutting targets as part of the Copenhagen accord. Its current target is to slash emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, but this could have been increased to 30 per cent if other countries had agreed a more ambitious deal.

昨日碳排放價格下跌的原因之一是，歐盟并未提高其減排目標并將其作為哥本哈根共識的一部分。其當前的目標是到2020年減排20%，但如果其它國家達成了一項更加雄心勃勃的協(xié)議，這個目標本可以有所提高。

譯者/管婧