国际货币基金组织总裁拉加德在华盛顿全球发展中心的演讲（中英对照）

英文版：Promoting Responsible Energy Pricing.doc

中文版：以负责的态度为能源定价.doc

Promoting Responsible Energy Pricing

以负责的态度为能源定价

 

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund

国际货币基金组织总裁克里斯蒂娜·拉加德

 

Center for Global Development

全球发展中心

 

July 31, 2014

2014年7月31日

 

Good morning!

 

上午好！

 

I am delighted to be back at the Center for Global Development, and I would like especially to thank Nancy Birdsall and Lawrence MacDonald for the warm welcome.

 

很高兴再次来到全球发展中心，我要特别感谢南希·伯索尔和劳伦斯·麦克唐纳的盛情欢迎。

 

We all know that CGD combines top-notch intellectual firepower with deep-rooted concern for the world’s poorest people. It is an indispensible agent of economic development. Thank you, Nancy, Lawrence—and all of your colleagues—for the great work that you do.

 

我们都知道，全球发展中心拥有顶尖人才，同时又深切关注世界最贫困人口。它是经济发展的不可缺少的催化力量。感谢南希、劳伦斯以及你们的所有同事开展的杰出工作。 

 

As some of you might recall, I was last here two years ago in the run-up to the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. At that time, I talked about the path to a sustainable future that would require us to overcome a triple crisis—an economic crisis, a social crisis, and an environmental crisis.

 

你们可能记得，我上次来到这里是在“里约+20”可持续发展会议前夕。当时我谈到，为了实现可持续的未来，我们需要克服三重危机——经济危机、社会危机、环境危机。

 

Today, I want to follow up on the third area—the environmental crisis, which is shaping up to be one of the greatest crises facing our generation and our century. It is also the issue upon which future generations will judge us.

 

今天，我想继续谈谈第三个领域——环境危机，这正成为我们这一代和我们这个世纪面对的最严峻挑战之一。我们的子孙后代也将根据这个问题来评价我们。 

 

If we do nothing, we face a future that is grim indeed. Our fortunes will melt with the ice, evaporate like water under a relentless sun, and wither away like sand in a desert storm. And the planet’s poorest and most vulnerable people will be the first to feel the pain.

 

如果我们无所作为，我们将面对一个凄惨的未来。我们的美好生活将随着冰面一起融化、像酷日下的水一样蒸发、像沙暴里的沙子一样毫无生气。地球上最贫困、最脆弱的人将首当其冲。 

 

Clearly, that is simply not an option. We must push back against these grave threats to our environment—as a matter of utmost urgency. This certainly calls for the international community to come together. Yet there is also a lot that countries can and should do on their own—this is one of my themes today.

 

显然，我们不能让这种情况发生。我们必须抗击环境面临的这些重大威胁——这是一项极为紧迫的任务。为此，国际社会必须团结在一起。但是，各个国家也能够、并且必须发挥自己的作用——这就是我今天谈论的主题之一。 

 

What is the IMF’s role in all of this? Two years ago, I made a commitment that the Fund would work hard to provide practical guidance—a kind of “toolkit”—to help our members ensure that they are pricing energy responsibly.

 

基金组织在其中起到什么作用？两年前，我承诺，基金组织将努力提供实践方面的指导（一种“工具箱”），帮助成员国以负责的方式对能源进行定价。

 

Today, we are following through on that commitment by releasing a new book: Getting Energy Prices Right: From Principle to Practice. In effect, it is the toolkit that we promised.

 

今天，我们在履行这个承诺——我们发布了一本新书：《正确设定能源价格：从原则到实践》。实际上，这就是我们承诺提供的工具箱。

 

In that context, let me talk about three things this morning:

 

所以，我今天上午想谈谈三个问题：

 

First, why environmental issues—particularly those related to energy production and use—matter so much to the Fund.

 

首先，为什么环境问题（特别是与能源生产和使用有关的问题）对基金组织来说这么重要。

 

Second, what we mean by “responsible” energy pricing.

 

其次，我们所说的“负责”的能源定价是指什么。

 

And third, how this principle can be put into practice.

 

第三，在实践中如何运用这一原则。 

 

Environmental issues and the IMF

环境问题与基金组织

 

Let me begin with why the IMF is concerned about the environment. The reason is simple: a degraded environment leads to a degraded economy. Environmental damage has macroeconomic implications, and implications for the design and impact of fiscal policy.

 

我首先谈一谈基金组织为什么关注环境。原因很简单：环境恶化导致经济恶化。环境的破坏会影响宏观经济，影响财政政策的设计和效果。

 

So where environmental damage is “macro-critical” it must also be “mission-critical” for us. Fossil fuels, we have learned, are a doubled-edged economic sword. The unprecedented improvement in global living standards over the past century certainly would not have been possible without the energy derived from these fuels.

 

所以，如果环境的破坏对宏观经济很重要，其对我们的工作就很重要。我们知道，矿物燃料对环境来说是一把双刃剑。上个世纪，全球生活水平空前提高，如果没有从这些燃料中取得的能源，这根本不可能实现。 

 

Yet we seem to have lost some ancient wisdom on the importance of balance and moderation.

 

不过，我们似乎失去了一些古老的智慧，忘记了均衡和适度的重要性。 

 

For while the world became richer as energy fueled economic expansion, only recently have we come to fully appreciate the damage done to our precious—and irreplaceable—natural resources.

 

这是因为，尽管能源带动的经济不断扩张，世界变得越来越富有，但我们直到最近才充分了解，我们宝贵的、不可替代的自然资源遭到了怎样的破坏。 

 

Think of spiraling atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, which—according to the latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—will warm the planet by around 3-4 degrees Celsius by 2100, in the absence of firm policy responses.

 

想一想温室气体的大气浓度的螺旋上升。根据政府间气候变化专门委员会的最新评估，如果不采取强有力的政策回应措施，到2100年，温室气体将导致地球温度上升约3～4摄氏度。

 

Think also of dirty air, which is caused mainly by burning fossil fuels. According to the World Health Organization, outdoor air pollution alone causes 3.2 million premature deaths a year. Meanwhile, relentless growth in vehicle traffic results in ever more productive hours lost in the grind of daily congestion.

 

想一想污浊的空气。这主要是燃烧矿物燃烧导致的。根据世界卫生组织的分析，仅室外空气污染就造成每年320万人过早死亡。同时，由于机动车交通疯狂增长，人们每天将大量时间浪费在道路拥堵中。

 

What can we do? We clearly cannot reset the clock to a time before the industrial revolution—that is as impossible as it is undesirable. The only viable solution is for policymakers to protect rather than plunder the environment, to steward rather than sabotage our precious resources.

 

我们该怎么办？我们显然不能把时钟倒拨回工业革命以前——这既不可能，也不可取。唯一的办法是，政策制定者保护而不是掠夺环境，管理而不是破坏我们的宝贵资源。

 

As the American poet Wendell Berry put it, “To cherish what remains of the earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.”

 

正如美国诗人温德尔·贝里说的：“珍惜地球的剩余资源，促进其更新，这是我们生存的唯一真正希望。”

 

But sometimes the poets need some help—in the form of clear, effective, practical advice on how to “cherish and foster”.

 

但有时诗人需要一些帮助——关于如何“珍惜和促进”的明确、有效、实用的建议。

 

As we all know, there is no simple solution here. Protecting the environment involves a multitude of moving parts. It encompasses, for example, research and development, infrastructure upgrades for power and transportation systems, and appropriate tax and regulatory regimes for extractive industries.

 

我们都知道，对于这个问题，没有一个简单的解决办法。保护环境涉及很多方面，例如，开展研发工作，改进电力和交通系统的基础设施，以及建立针对采掘业的适当的税收和监管体制。 

 

Yet, in all of this, fiscal policy must take center stage. The message is simple: to get it right, price it right. Make sure that prices reflect not only the costs of supplying energy, but also the environmental side effects.

 

不过，在所有这些方面，财政政策必须发挥核心作用。结论很简单：要想做对事，就要定对价。我们要保证，价格不仅反映提供能源的成本，而且反映其对环境造成的影响。

 

This brings me to the main entry point for the IMF.

 

这就是基金组织最主要的切入点。

 

We have already done quite a bit of work in this area. For example, we have been pushing hard for the elimination of energy subsidies, which—as discussed in IMF research published last year—are bad for the planet, bad for the economy, bad for the budget, and bad for social equity.

 

我们在这方面已经开展大量工作。例如，我们在努力推动取消能源补贴。正如基金组织去年发布的一项研究所探讨的，能源补贴对地球有害，对经济有害，对预算有害，对社会公平有害。

 

But we need to go well beyond the elimination of direct cash subsidies, and make sure that energy tax systems around the world properly reflect environmental side effects.

 

但我们远远不止需要取消直接的现金补贴，我们要确保各国的能源税体系正确反映对环境的影响。

 

On this point, let me be crystal clear: we are generally talking about smarter taxes rather than higher taxes. This means re-calibrating tax systems to achieve fiscal objectives more efficiently, most obviously by using the proceeds to lower other burdensome taxes. The revenue from energy taxes could of course also be used to pay down public debt.

 

在这点上，我要非常明确地指出：我们需要的是更明智的税收，而不是更高的税收。这意味着，要调整税收体系，更高效地实现财政目标，其中特别是将收入用于降低其他税收负担。从能源税中取得的收入显然还可以用于偿付公共债务。

 

We would expect these sorts of tax shifts to have limited adverse economic effects—the whole point is to raise revenue in ways that make the economy work better by fixing market failures.

 

我们预计，这类税收转移对经济造成的负面效应不会很大——总的来说，就是通过纠正市场失效让经济更好运转，从而增加收入。 

 

Of course, taxing energy is not the only route. We can certainly think of good alternatives like programs where governments sell rights to pollute. Cap and trade systems have been around for a number of years and, if set up properly, provide a very reasonable alternative to meet the same objective.

 

当然，征收能源税不是唯一的途径。我们当然可以想想其他好的办法，比如，政府出售污染权的计划。 排放总量限制和排放权交易制度已经实行了若干年，若得到妥善安排，将提供一个能实现相同目标的合理替代方案。