VOA标准英语2015--世界气候会议在瓦努阿图飓风吹袭背景下召开

Disaster Conference Meets Against Backdrop of Vanuatu Cyclone¹ Destruction 世界气候会议在瓦努阿图飓风吹袭背景下召开

SENDAI, JAPAN—

How the world should protect itself from natural disasters and climate change and who should pay for it are being debated at the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, which was devastated² by an earthquake and tsunami³ in 2011.

As delegates try to agree on a new framework, the aftermath of Cyclone Pam in the South Pacific is reminding them of the urgency of a deal.

Four years after the huge tsunami struck northern Japan, the hunt for bodies goes on. Close to 16,000 people died in the disaster. More than 2,500 remain missing, presumed dead.

Officer Hidenori Kasahara said they owe it to the families of the missing to keep looking.

“We have not found anyone for a while in this area,” he said. “We sometimes find bones but it turns out they are the remains⁴ of animals.”

Visiting Sendai this week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the recovery effort as a model for others and said the 2015 conference is a vital step.

“Sustainability starts in Sendai," he said. "The disaster risk reduction can be a frontline against the climate change.”

The conference is taking place against the backdrop of the devastation⁵ wrought⁶ by Cyclone Pam last week in Vanuatu.

The island nation's president told delegates in Japan that development in his country had been "wiped out."

The cyclone changed its expected path at the last minute. Speaking at the conference, the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, Michel Jarraud, told VOA early warning systems had saved lives in the South Pacific.

“This kind of cyclone is very unusual," he said. "We are not even sure at this stage, because we still need to wait to see what was the exact strength of this cyclone, but it is very unusual. And it is even more challenging for a country to deal with hazards which do not happen regularly.”

The Asian tsunami in 2004 prompted the United Nations to adopt the 10-year Hyogo Framework for Action on reducing disaster risk. That 10-year period is ending and delegates in Sendai are trying to agree on a new framework on how to make the world safer.

The deadline is Wednesday. Tom Mitchell, of environmental and humanitarian⁷ policy group the Overseas Development Institute, said the cost of natural disasters — up to $300 billion in disaster losses each year — should force agreement.

“So it is very much at stake that you have got this big financial toll⁸, but in some ways this is not causing the galvanizing effect that we want to see in terms of investment in resilience,” he said.

Mitchell said familiar sticking points are slowing progress towards an agreement. That includes finance.

“Who is going to pay for the scale of the problem, particularly given that climate change is ramping⁹ this up? And there is an expectation on the richer, polluting countries to pay a bit more, that is a sticking point," he said.

And there are other issues. " Whether we are talking about conflict risk and disaster risk together and the link between those — [is] really problematic for some countries, particularly those in the Middle East,” he added.

Delegates largely agree that natural disasters are inflicting¹⁰ a bigger toll on communities, but agreeing on how the risks should be mitigated¹¹ is proving a more difficult task.

1 cyclone   

n.旋风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• An exceptionally violent cyclone hit the town last night.昨晚异常猛烈的旋风吹袭了那个小镇。
• The cyclone brought misery to thousands of people.旋风给成千上万的人带来苦难。

2 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

3 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

7 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

8 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

9 ramping   

土堤斜坡( ramp的现在分词 )； 斜道； 斜路； （装车或上下飞机的）活动梯

参考例句：

• The children love ramping about in the garden. 孩子们喜欢在花园里追逐嬉戏，闹着玩。
• Have you ever seen a lion ramping around? 你看到过狮子暴跳吗？

10 inflicting   

把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. 他被控蓄意严重伤害他人身体。
• It's impossible to do research without inflicting some pain on animals. 搞研究不让动物遭点罪是不可能的。

11 mitigated   

v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The cost of getting there is mitigated by Sydney's offer of a subsidy. 由于悉尼提供补助金，所以到那里的花费就减少了。 来自辞典例句
• The living conditions were slightly mitigated. 居住条件稍有缓解。 来自辞典例句