如何解决城市能源供应难题？

Cities hold about half of the world’s population but account for 60 per cent of its energy use, according to the International Energy Agency, which is backed by developed country governments.

根据得到发达政府支持的国际能源署(IEA)数据，城市养育了全球约一半的人口，却消耗了占全球使用量60%的能源。

Many of the problems of urbanisation – local pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, provision of services and economic development – are linked to energy use.

城市化的很多问题——环境污染、温室气体排放、服务配套和经济发展，都与能源消耗有关。

In emerging economies, cities typically consume more commercially provided energy than rural areas. City dwellers are more likely to have access to electricity, to own energy-hungry consumer goods, and to work in places that need to be powered.

在新兴经济体，城市对商业化供应的能源消耗量往往超过农村地区。城市居民更有可能获得电力供应、拥有高耗能的消费品并在需要用电的场所工作。

Rural areas typically use much more biomass such as wood and animal dung for cooking and heating, so their total energy consumption is often higher. But the demand for coal, gas and power is greatest in cities. In China, cities use twice as much commercial energy per capita as the countryside.

在农村，利用柴火和动物粪便等生物质来生活做法和取暖的情况，往往会比城市里普遍得多。因此，农村能源消耗总量通常更高。但在城市，人们对煤炭、天然气和电力这几种形式的能源需求量最大。在中国，城市人均商业化供应的能源消耗量是农村的两倍。

In developed economies, including the US and the EU, that pattern is reversed, and cities are typically the most energy-efficient places. In the US, people in rural areas use 12 per cent more energy per capita than city dwellers. Those in the suburbs use 20 per cent more.

在发达经济体（包括美国和欧盟(EU)），情况恰恰相反——城市往往是能源消耗最少的地方。在美国，农村居民的人均能源消耗量比城市居民高出12%。郊区居民的人均能源消耗量比城市居民高出20%。

Cities that address the challenges of energy provision can improve the lives of their residents and their prospects for economic development, as well as show the world ways to respond to energy shortages.

解决城市能源供应难题，能够提高城市居民生活质量，改善城市经济发展的前景，同时在全世界面前为应对能源短缺起到示范作用。

The entries for this category indicate that there is a demand for innovation that is economic and social, as well as technological. Often, the technology to make significant changes already exists, and the important part is finding ways for it to be deployed on a large enough scale to make a difference.

尝试解决这一难题的一些例子显示，有必要进行经济、社会以及技术上的创新。可以创造重大变革的技术往往已经存在，重要的是找到方法，对技术进行足够大规模的利用，以创造一些改变。

Proterra’s electric bus is an example of a technological innovation. With a completely new body and systems, and an innovative lithium titanate battery, the EcoRide has been out in front of the rest of the US bus industry.

Proterra生产的电动公交车，就是一个技术创新的例子。该公司生产的EcoRide电动公交车，车身和车辆系统与传统公交车截然不同，配备了突破传统的钛酸锂电池，走在了美国公交车制造业的前沿。

Two other entries address the fact that poverty forces people to cook and heat their homes with coal, charcoal, wood and animal dung. Smoke and soot from those fuels are estimated to cause 2m deaths worldwide each year, mostly of women and children.

在另外两个例子中，技术人员针对这样一个事实想出了解决之道：由于贫困，人们不得不用煤、木炭、柴火和动物粪便，来生火做饭和取暖。据估计，燃烧这些物质所产生的烟雾和灰尘每年导致全球200万人死亡，其中多数为妇女和儿童。

The Community Cooker from Kenya is a stove that burns waste at very high temperatures, above 800 degrees Celsius, to minimise noxious waste gases and ash. Reaching those temperatures was difficult, but the stove has been designed so that it can be built, maintained and repaired in the slums where it is being used.

肯尼亚的“社区炉灶(Community Cooker)是一种以极高的温度（超过800摄氏度）燃烧废物的炉子。高温燃烧能最大限度地减少有毒气体的排放和灰尘的产生。要达到这种高温很难，不过这样的炉子已经设计出来。贫民区居民可以搭建这样的炉子并自行维护和修理。如今，肯尼亚许多贫民区居民已经用上了这种炉子。

The LPG project from India uses a very well-established technology, familiar from any backyard grill in the US, but with a new economic framework to increase access. One of the greatest obstacles to the use of liquefied petroleum gas by poor households in India is the upfront costs for a stove, a regulator, a gas cylinder and fuel. The LPG scheme takes regular contributions from members of a community and pools them to pay those costs for a few households every month. In the pilot project, all 60 households were connected over a period of five to six months.

印度的液化石油气(LPG)项目利用了一种非常成熟的技术，这种技术常见于美国家庭的后院烧烤架活动中，但印度加上了一个新的经济框架，以扩大该技术的适用范围。阻止印度贫困家庭使用液化石油气的最大障碍之一是前期投入——要购买气化炉、调节器、气瓶和燃料。液化石油气项目得到了某社区居民的定期捐款，项目组织者将捐款集中起来，每个月解决几家的前期投入。在试运行中，参与项目的总共60个家庭，在5至6个月的时间里全都用上了液化天然气。

Two influential cities, Tokyo and Houston, have taken very different approaches in their attempts to achieve greater energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

在努力提高能源使用效率和减少温室气体排放方面，两个颇具影响力的城市——东京和休斯敦，采取了迥然不同的方法。

Japan’s capital has introduced the world’s first city-level cap-and-trade programme for carbon dioxide emissions, requiring commercial and industrial buildings to make energy efficiency modifications or buy emissions permits.

日本首都东京推出了世界第一个城市级碳排放“限额与交易（cap-and-trade）计划，要求各工商业大楼要不就进行能效改革，要不就购买碳排放额度。

The scheme, launched in 2010, is a culmination of Tokyo’s effort to improve energy efficiency, which it began in 2002.

该计划于2010年推出，代表日本政府自2002年起提高能源效率的努力达到一个高峰。

In Houston, by contrast, the energy efficiency programme is voluntary. The mayor’s Green Office Challenge harnesses the competitive spirit of the city’s businesses to drive down their energy use, with recognition and the possibility of some small cash grants its only rewards.

与东京不同，在休斯敦，能效计划是自愿参加的。休斯敦市长发起的“绿色办公室挑战(Green Office Challenge)项目，利用该市企业的好胜心，促使它们争相减少能源使用。项目优胜者仅有的奖赏就是政府的认可，可能还有一点现金奖励。

One of the many concerns about worldwide urbanisation is that it will mean homogenisation – that economic development will mean standardised cities. While that may prove true eventually, the lesson of these awards is how diverse the challenges, as well as the solutions, still are.

人们对在全世界兴起的城市化有很多担忧，其中之一就是，人们担心这将导致城市同质化：经济发展将带来越来越多“标准化城市。尽管事实可能最终会证明这是真的，但休斯顿的做法告诉我们：眼前种种困难之间的差异有多大，同时，解决办法仍然是多么的五花八门。