在澳大利亚东部多处燃起森林大火之后，总理莫里森作出了可悲的回应。他领导的政府将会为此付出政治代价。
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A haze of smoke has made the skies over Bondi Beach look more like those in New Delhi. The death toll has risen. Bushfires have raged across Australia amid a heatwave that has sent temperatures soaring to record levels more common in the Middle East. The scale of the country’s wildfire emergency has few precedents. But it has been exacerbated by a regrettable lack of leadership from the prime minister, Scott Morrison. Beyond Australia’s shores, his government stands as a reproach to any leaders tempted to follow its lamentable response to the deepening threat of climate change.
烟雾笼罩下，邦迪海滩(Bondi Beach)上空看上去更像新德里的天空。死亡人数在上升。林火在澳大利亚全国各地肆虐，一场热浪使气温飙升至创纪录水平；这样的高温本来在中东更为常见。这次的林火紧急情况的规模在澳大利亚鲜有先例。但总理斯科特•莫里森(Scott Morrison)令人遗憾的领导不力使情况更加严重。面对不断加剧的气候变化威胁，他领导的政府做出可悲的回应，在澳大利亚以外，他的政府必定会给任何试图效仿这种做法的领导人带来耻辱。
Mr Morrison has long been a cheerful volunteer in the pisive climate battles that have ravaged the political landscape in Australia, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters. One of his predecessors, Tony Abbott, made history in 2014 by repealing a national carbon tax. Mr Morrison made international news himself in 2017 when as Treasurer, he brandished a lump of coal on the floor of the parliament to taunt critics he claimed had a “pathological fear” of the fuel.
澳大利亚是世界最大化石燃料出口国之一。在这场已严重影响澳大利亚政局的引起分歧的气候斗争中，莫里森长期以来一直是无所谓的志愿者。他的前任之一托尼•阿博特(Tony Abbott)在2014年通过废除碳税创造了历史。莫里森本人在2017年成为国际头条新闻，当时身为财政部长的他在议会大厅挥舞一块煤炭嘲讽批评者，称后者对这种燃料怀有“病态的恐惧”。
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He became prime minister last year after a coup in his centre-right Liberal party ousted the cosmopolitan former investment banker Malcolm Turnbull, whose agenda had included a greener energy policy. This year, Mr Morrison confounded expectations by leading his coalition government to yet another election victory, having campaigned in favour of a vast Queensland coal mine.
去年，莫里森所属的中间偏右翼的自由党内发生了政变，前投资银行家、世界主义的马尔科姆•特恩布尔(Malcolm Turnbull)被赶下台（特恩布尔的议程包括更注重环保的能源政策），此后，莫里森成为总理。今年，莫里森出人意料地领导他的联合政府取得又一次选举胜利，他在竞选期间曾支持昆士兰州的一座大型煤矿。
Against this background, when blazing bushfires broke out across eastern Australia, Mr Morrison stumbled. Eager to play down scientists’ warnings that a hotter, drier climate would help to make fires more frequent and intense, his ministers’ initial response to the fires smacked of politically calculated complacency. The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said Australia had endured fires “since time began” and victims did not need the “ravings” of “woke capital city greenies”. Two weeks ago, when Sydney was blanketed in a thick haze of smoke, Mr Morrison gave a press conference in the city where he appeared more eager to discuss a religious freedom bill than bushfires.
在这种背景下，在澳大利亚东部多处燃起林火后，莫里森作出笨拙的反应。他手下的部长级官员们急于否定科学家们的警告，即更热、更干燥的气候将使林火更加频繁和来势凶猛，因而在最初对林火作出的回应暴露出带有政治盘算的自满。副总理迈克尔•麦考马克(Michael McCormack)竟称，澳大利亚“自从时间开始”就忍受林火，受害者不需要“觉醒的首都环保人士”的“胡言乱语”。两周前，当悉尼被浓烟笼罩时，莫里森在该市举行记者会，不过他似乎更热衷于讨论一项宗教自由法案，而不是林火。
Photo credit: Getty Images
As the fires blazed on last week, Mr Morrison abruptly disappeared to parts unknown. “Where the bloody hell are you?” asked critics, using a campaign slogan commissioned when Mr Morrison ran the government’s Tourism Australia agency. Bizarrely, his office initially said reports he was on holiday in Hawaii were wrong. As anger surged over his absence, and two firefighters were killed, the prime minister broke cover to say he had indeed been in Hawaii but was coming home.
上周，在林火肆虐之际，莫里森却突然不知所踪。“你到底在哪里？”批评者问道，借用莫里森执掌澳大利亚旅游局(Tourism Australia)时的一句宣传口号。奇葩的是，他的办公室最初声称，有关他在夏威夷度假的报道是错误的。随着各方对他不知去向的愤怒升温，同时两名消防员丧生，这位总理打破沉默，承认自己确实在夏威夷，但马上就会回国。
This sorry domestic spectacle has been compounded by Mr Morrison’s behaviour on the international stage. At UN climate talks in Madrid this month, his government was accused of trying to weaken rules for the 2015 Paris agreement and making feeble efforts to meet its emissions targets.
莫里森在国际舞台上的举动加剧了这种令人遗憾的国内事态。在本月在马德里举行的联合国气候谈判中，他的政府被指责试图削弱2015年巴黎气候协定的规则，并且只为达到其排放目标做出微弱努力。
Photo credit: Getty Images
Mr Morrison often argues that Australia accounts for just 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions. Setting aside the fact that its per capita emissions are among the world’s highest, it is true that cutting pollution in Australia alone would not physically prevent its bushfires, or the devastating floods and drought it has endured in recent times. Global warming requires a global response. But that response will never come if wealthy nations such as Australia continue to behave as if climate breakdown is a problem for others. Mr Morrison is now paying a political cost for his inaction. A far higher price will be paid in future for the bleak litany of climate failures his government represents.
莫里森经常辩称，澳大利亚仅占全球碳排放总量的1.3%。撇开该国的人均排放量在世界上“名列前茅”这个事实，没错，仅仅在澳大利亚减少污染无法完全阻止其林火，也无法阻止该国近年遭遇的严重洪灾和旱灾。全球变暖需要全球应对。但是，如果像澳大利亚这样的富国继续表现得就好像气候反常是其他国家的问题，那么这种全球应对将永远不会有。莫里森正在因其无所作为而付出政治代价。未来，他的政府所代表的在气候方面一系列可悲的失败将会酿成高得多的代价。
本文12月26日发布于FT中文网，英文原题为 Leader_Australia’s bushfires have exposed its leaders’ failings
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