新西兰英语 134 Carbon Emissions

　　The Minister of Climate Change, Nick Smith, gave some strange information about our carbon emissions¹ yesterday. (See September 23rd 2008 for information about the Emissions Trading Scheme.) Last year we put too much carbon into the atmosphere and would need to buy $546 million of carbon credits². This year, amazingly, we have $241 million of carbon credits that we could sell to another country. The Emissions Trading Scheme doesn’t start until 2015.
The figures show how hard it is to measure carbon that is going into the atmosphere. In 2002, New Zealand had 55 million tonnes of carbon credits but in 2006 we had 64 million tonnes of carbon deficit³, which means we would have to buy some carbon credits.
Farmers believe that the government needs to take farm animals out of the Emissions Trading Scheme. Agriculture is too important for our economy – for exports and for jobs.
Nick Smith says that the difference in figures is because of a drop in the number of farm animals during the drought⁴. Also many forests were planted in the 1990s.
Although forests are helping⁵ to reduce our carbon emissions, we are still 23% above 1990 levels of carbon emissions in transport, energy and industry. Under the Kyoto agreement, countries are trying to return to 1990 levels.

1 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

2 credits   

n.节目前后字幕；信任，信用，声望，荣誉， [财务]贷方，银行存款；信任( credit的名词复数 )；存款；学分；（借钱偿还的）信誉link-v.相信，信任，把…归给

参考例句：

• He credits me with having better sense than that. 他认为我的见识要比那强得多。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Does this item go among the credits or the debits? 这笔账应记入贷方还是借方？ 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

4 drought   

n.旱灾，干旱，久旱

参考例句：

• The plants are growing in again,despite the drought.尽管干旱，植物又长出来了。
• The ground is as hard as stone after the drought.长期干旱后土地硬得就像石头一样。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。