Q. We read a lot about air pollution, but you also think that water is crucial.
问：我们经常读到有关空气污染的报道，但你觉得水也至关重要。
A. Increasingly, water is a hard-stop issue. Air pollution is horrible, but most people affected by it are still living. But no one can live without water. I don’t know what people will do when the water stops. In China, projects like the South-North Water Diversion Project just delay the day of reckoning. What concerns me is that even most otherwise far-sighted governments are not facing up to the challenges.
答：水越来越多地成为一个存亡问题。空气污染很可怕，但受它影响的大多数人仍然活着。但是，没有水就没有人能活。我不知道水没了的时候，人们将怎么办。在中国，像南水北调这样的工程项目只能推迟算总帐的日子。我担心的是，即使在其他问题上有远见的政府也还没有直面这个挑战。
For example, what do you do if you’re a municipal official, and you have an industry, say semi-conductors, which uses a lot of water? What do you do when you have to make a choice: water for the factory or the town? These are the kinds of choices that aren’t going to happen today or tomorrow, but governments will face this.
比如，如果你是一个市政官员，你会怎么做？你管着一个行业，比如半导体，它需要大量的水。当你需要做出选择：水是给工厂、还是给城市的时候，你会怎么做？这种选择不会在今天或明天发生，但政府将面临这种选择。
Q. And yet there are signs of hope in China.
问：中国也还有希望的迹象？
A. China is about to overtake Germany as having the largest amount of installed solar power capability. It also has large wind turbine facilities. All of this is important because China burns half the world’s coal and accounts for 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. So to fix China, we need to cut coal use. Coal is supposed to peak in 2030, but it could happen a lot faster. So these are huge challenges, but China is potentially further ahead than many people realize.
答：中国即将超过德国，成为太阳能发电装机能力最大的国家。中国还有大量的风力发电机组设备。所有这一切都很重要，因为中国烧掉了世界上一半的煤，释放了世界上二氧化碳排放量的30％。因此，要解决中国的问题，就需要削减煤炭的使用。煤炭使用预计将在2030年达到峰值，但峰值可能会更快地达到。所以这些都是巨大的挑战，但中国可能迈出的步伐比许多人意识到的要更大。