有一个替代历史到2020年。这是世界上最大的污染者承诺在40年内充分贬低其经济的一年。该星球的选民在地球的杰出超级大国驳回了一个种族主义者，厌恶yenist气候旦尼斯，有利于一名承诺在世纪中期工程净零排放经济的人。全球最大市场宣布历史上最大的绿色刺激计划计划。
这是数百个世界上最大和最有影响力的企业承诺完全脱碳的那一年，他们的运营和供应链。当年投资者有万亿美元资产调用煤炭融资时间并承诺提供净零排放组合。今年的可再生能源开发商和电动汽车先驱的市场上超出了传统化石燃料公司的推出，他们很快就会取代，这是一个公平的少数人提起破产。
It was the year when hydrogen fueled and battery operated planes took to the skies. The year when实验室生长的肉击中了市场并销售植物的产品飙升。可再生能源设定多个记录和电动汽车的年度赶到市场。
In the United Kingdom, it was the year when the carbon target for 2030 was strengthened. The year when billions of pounds were earmarked for low carbon infrastructure and overseas fossil fuel financing was halted. The year when every politician talked of green recovery and the unerring economic and moral logic of the net zero transition — and the public agreed with them.
到2020年底，世界经济的三分之二和超过一半的全球排放将被净零目标覆盖，或者在管道中有这样的目标。政府提出的集体承诺和策略，如果承诺，将使世界追踪2.1摄氏度的变暖，仍然是危险的气候变化水平，但仅仅五年前的投影就会出现卓越的成就大约3℃。最好的，唐纳德特朗普正在从椭圆形办公室包装他的蜡笔。
在整个滚动的健康和经济危机中，绿色经济及其同类旅行者已经从事银行的令人钦佩的狩猎。他们甚至设法找到了一些。
关闭在那里的一年内审查会有一个赞美诗，当巴黎协定工作和全球排放是尖峰的证据时，将一个赞美诗开始到一个关键的十年，当下阶段的基础时，达到峰值绿色工业革命是果断的。很好，但不诚实。
Because if emissions did peak in 2019, if political and corporate leaders fully embraced the need for credible and ambitious climate action, if oil suddenly looked like a high risk legacy fuel, it was in large part because we were surrounded by death and destruction.
2020年是瘟疫的年份。一年的悲剧和创伤为数百万的人，以及更多的数十亿人的不安全和幽闭恐惧症，具有粉碎政府的无能为力的方面的秩序。希望我们再也不会看到它，但没有保证这一点。实际上，大流行的最大受害者之一是我们自恋的无懈可击感。下一个大流行可能更糟糕。
在整个滚动的健康和经济危机中，绿色经济及其同类旅行者已经从事银行的令人钦佩的狩猎。他们甚至设法找到了一些。
由于造成严重损坏的经济收缩，排放可能很大程度上已经暴跌，但可再生能源的有效性放大了向下趋势对遥控器技术的节目贡献以及遥控工作技术的生产力节约性能。
它可能是一种心理策略，可以在最具挑战性的情况下实现自我保护，但大量的人真的确实觉得与自然的欣赏和欣赏更大的联系;了解当地社区的价值;并意识到从我们过度的自然资源流出的巨大风险。
在政治层面，但最极端的自由主义意识形态被迫估计有效和积极的政府的至关重要，以及长尾环境风险所带来的巨大威胁，公共和经济健康的相互关联和基本的威胁减缓的真理总是比适应更有效。
But as I在危机开始时争论这些，这些收益都没有感到根深蒂固，他们绝不会弥补我们所有人都必须忍受的悲伤，混乱和孤独。一个希望当大流行首次袭来时，它会教会政府的宝贵课程，当面对复杂，多方面，严重和指数威胁时，最好的行动方案是让一切促使它尽可能快地或违规风险不堪重负。该理论是学习的经验教训可以有效地应用于气候危机，不作为类似惩罚，滞后时间和不确定的情景意味着早期措施，预防原则的精明应用往往会得到回报。But, in the U.K. at least, we are almost a year into the pandemic and as the death toll passes 60,000 and a new strain of the virus threatens to inundate health services, the prime minister is still failing to apply these simple lessons to the coronavirus itself, let alone absorb them for tackling other longer term threats.
大流行可能觉得是一种拐点，但目前尚不清楚，如果随后的加速会推动我们朝向乌托邦清洁技术的未来或污染物污染灾害灾难。或者，最有可能，两者的混合。
自2008年财政灾难以来，世界领导人迅速修补功能失调和固有的挥发性机器，世界已被困扰着，而且由于各种原因很大程度上未能为更新，清洁，更公平的模型进行交易。据特别知识的进展是巴黎协议的多边主义庆祝形式，绿色投资和技术趋势它帮助加速了。但是无法提供更多基本改革的痛苦的反障碍，给了我们Brexit，Trump，以及更重要的是，Trumpism仍然有关。
The net result was five years of going round in circles, a period when every good intention or decisive step forward was swiftly followed by a bout of tribalism, incompetence or outright corruption. When the promise of finally sorting out environmentally destructive farming subsidies had to be delivered in tandem with tailbacks at the border and the poisoning of relations with our closest neighbors. When demand for electric vehicles rose alongside demand for SUVs. When every renewables development seemed to come with a new runway.
大流行和气候危机的无情的游行提供了在长期自我击败的瘀滞后打破这种恶性循环的机会，并且实际上挑选了前进的道路。由于40岁以下的人反映了其短期职业生涯的第二个一生的经济危机，仍然是我们将选择的批评问题。
在她的大流行上的辉煌文章中，novelist Zadie Smith startedby quoting that rarest of things, a moment of honesty from Trump. "I wish we could have our old life back," he said. "We had the greatest economy that we've ever had, and we didn't have death." It may have been expressed with characteristic clumsiness, but the president surely spoke for billions of people. Polls may show that most of the population worldwide want no truck with a return to "normality," but our understanding of human nature says different.
In climate change, humanity faces arguably the biggest collective problem it has ever faced. If the biggest lesson that we take from 2020 is that it's possible to work from home 2 days a week, then we have fallen short.
12月中旬，FT的亨利·曼联提供了一个富有洞察力的反思接下来是什么，警告大流行促使的许多可持续行为都不太可能粘。“想象一下，如果到2021年底，欧洲和美国的大部分都是针对这种疾病的疫苗，”他写道。“那些没有失去工作的人已经积累了储蓄。想象他们努力弥补失去的时间：派对，节日，旅行。如果新的正常看起来很像旧正常一样怎么办？”
The big fear is not that people embrace the opportunities for reconnection that vaccines would bring — who could possibly blame them — and environmentalists should be very wary of conforming to the finger-wagging killjoy cliché as consumerism and travel inevitably come roaring back. No, the concern is that at the macro level the opportunity to "build back better" is squandered. That political and business leaders repeat the mistakes of 2008 and duck the structural reforms that are so urgently required if the 2020s really are to be defined by the turbocharged decarbonization of the global economy. As Mance concluded: "Normality is something to strive for; it is also something to regret. We have no reason to think this will be the last pandemic of our lifetimes. In climate change, humanity faces arguably the biggest collective problem it has ever faced. If the biggest lesson that we take from 2020 is that it's possible to work from home two days a week, then we have fallen short."
恢复不可持续的“正常”的诱惑将到处都是，特别是作为清洁技术革命的下一阶段 - EVS，热泵和绿色建筑改造 - 需要更大的投资和对人们日常生活中断。太多政府已经达成了熟悉的碳化刺激措施，以恢复锁定的经济体。其他人已经证明了政治神经和管理能力的持续缺乏，这对净零过渡至关重要，这将通过致命地捆绑对病毒和傲慢解雇指数风险的响应来造成对集体行动的信任。一个政府，无法让自己冒昧地劝告公共卫生规则或与人们与圣诞节旅行相关的健康风险，直到火车门票的健康风险突发，并且命令的火鸡不太可能突然发现避免所需的骨干和沟通技巧政治雷区等待净零转型加速。
在气候行动的大西洋反对者的两侧保持粉末干燥，等待Brexit开门，为环境野心和总统乔·宾根举行的新袭击，在白宫提供左翼榜文。它们根本不会妨碍他们与大多数公众，经济逻辑和基本物理学的一步之遥。随着成本降低和清洁技术成熟，即使是预期的倡导者，政府无法支持既得利益和侵害环保主义的文化战争急促障碍，仍然是对净零转型的最大威胁，这可能是不可避免的，但仍在进行太慢了。作为总统巴拉克奥巴马曾经观察过，“在气候变化时，就有太晚了。”延迟是敌人。
Which is why the alternative history of 2020 is so immensely important. Because during a year when many within the green economy feared the global health crisis would distract from the effort to tackle the climate crisis, precisely the opposite has happened. Progress has not just been made, it has accelerated. The pursuit of complete decarbonization and full spectrum climate action has been normalized like never before. There remains a big gap between ambition and action, and countless challenges and hypocrisies remain. But millions of businesses, investors, governments and individuals used the start of a new decade dominated by tragedy to publicly select the path that leads to a cleaner, healthier, more prosperous net-zero emission future. 2021 offers the chance to not just cement those gains, but build on them. A better history awaits, if enough people want it.
