29日上午10時(shí),北京將空氣重污染預(yù)警由黃色升級為橙色。今天,北京繼續(xù)被霧霾包圍,當(dāng)北京空氣污染頻遭抱怨之時(shí),殊不知,鄰國印度的空氣質(zhì)量更加糟糕。因?yàn)殪F霾,火車延誤在印度北方的冬季更是家常便飯。
測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí):
enshroud籠罩
filter過濾器
fleet柴油機(jī)
sulphur dioxide|二氧化硫
rein控制
smelt冶煉
boiler鍋爐
scrubber洗滌器
COP21 Paris climate talks: Beijing and New Delhi choke on smog (631words)
By Lucy Hornby in Beijing and Amy Kazmin in New Delhi
China and India have greeted the start of climate change talks in Paris with their capitals enshrouded in thick brown smog, a product of runaway economic growth.
In Beijing and New Delhi, both plagued by smog for much of the past month, children have been kept indoors at schools and sales of air filter and face masks have boomed .
High levels of vehicle and industrial emissions have combined with smoke from heating in north China, and in northern India with agricultural waste burning.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, which has completed a study on Delhi's air pollution, has called for urgent measures to upgrade fuel standards. The government, however, appears reluctant to confront India's powerful automotive industry. Low-grade diesel and poor emissions standards among the country's growing truck fleet are leading causes of smog in India.
In Beijing, the smog worsened after the environment ministry announced that it had achieved its five-year pollution targets six months early. Research from one government-backed institute suggests the ministry has instead undercounted emissions of sulphur dioxide by about half.
The research highlights the difficulty China faces even quantifying its pollution problem, given the challenge of obtaining accurate statistics. Beijing has pledged to rein in its carbon emissions so that they stop growing by 2030, despite not having published an official estimate of emissions since 2005.
A study by the China Environment Chamber of Commerce shows that China emitted about 30m tonnes of SO2 last year, up from 25m tonnes in 2005, based on calculations of coal use by non-power generators such as metals smelters and factories. That contrasts with official figures that SO2 emissions fell to 19m tonnes last year.
“If you really want to control smog, you need to keep SO2 under 13m tonnes,” said Luo Jianhua, the chamber's secretary-general. “If we are at 20m tonnes now we are not so far off but if we are closer to 30m tonnes then there's a long way to go.”
The chamber's calculations take into account a 1.1bn tonne increase in the use of coal by the non-power sector over the past 10 years.
China's official statistics often undercount sectors that are dominated by private industry (including coal mining, manufacturing and smelting) because of their reliance on reporting by state-owned enterprises. This year, China revised up by about 14 per cent the amount of coal it had consumed between 2000 and 2013.
China has invested in scrubbers to clean emissions at its power generation plants and big steel mills. Complex plans to curb carbon emissions include shutting industrial boilers at factories and moving heavy industry away from eastern population centers to poorer regions, where there is “room to pollute” according to central planners' spreadsheets.
But the calculations that emissions will peak around 2030 rely heavily on politically sensitive projections of GDP growth, leaving the plans vulnerable should the economy not perform according to plan.
For most of this year, northern China enjoyed relatively blue skies, giving rise to reports that emissions-control measures such as moving heavy industry out to the hinterland were responsible for the improvement. Sceptics pointed instead to a drop in power generation, particularly coal-fired, thanks to a slowing economy, collapsing margins for steel producers, relatively mild weather and an onset of new hydropower generation.
In November, the coal-burning boilers that provide city heating fired up across the north China plain, burying the northeastern city of Shenyang in among the worst pollution recorded in China and blocking out the sun across much of the northern plain.
Many Chinese compared the murk to the blue skies that grace Beijing during international conferences when the government orders factories and power plants offline and cars off the roads. “Quick, apply another international event,” one commentator, named ‘xiaomin2012', quipped on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.
請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容,完成以下自測題目:
1.Where is plagued by agricultural waste burning?
A.north China
B.south China
C.northern India
D.south America
答案(1)
2.What kind of professions is leading causes of smog in India?
A.tech industry
B.automotive industry
C.heavy industry
D.healthcare industry
答案(2)
3.Which one of the following has been instead undercounted emissions about half by the ministry?
A.carbon dioxide
B.sulphuric acid
C.nitrogen dioxide
D.sulphur dioxide
答案(3)
4.How to clean emissions at its power generation plants and big steel mills for China?
A.restriction of coal
B.use alternative energy
C.secondary combustion
D.install scrubbers
答案(4)
* * *
(1)答案:C.northern India
解釋:車輛和工業(yè)的大量排放在中國北方與供暖產(chǎn)生的煙結(jié)合在一起,在印度北方則與農(nóng)業(yè)燃燒產(chǎn)生的污染物結(jié)合在一起。
(2)答案:B.automotive industry
解釋:在汽車制造業(yè)中,隨著卡車保有量不斷上升,其劣質(zhì)柴油和糟糕排放標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是印度霧霾的頭號元兇。
(3)答案:D.sulphur dioxide
解釋:有政府后臺(tái)的一個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)的研究似乎表明,環(huán)保部將二氧化硫排放量低估了大約一半。
(4)答案:D.install scrubbers
解釋:中國已在國內(nèi)發(fā)電廠和大型鋼廠投資安裝洗滌器以清洗排氣。
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