美能源部長承諾 扭轉氣候變遷政策

Before a packed crowd of oil and gas executives on Monday, Chris Wright, the new U.S. energy secretary, delivered a scathing critique of the Biden administration’s energy policies and efforts to fight climate change and promised a “180-degree pivot.”

美國新任能源部長萊特周一在一群石油和天然氣產業高管面前，嚴厲批評拜登政府能源政策及對抗氣候變遷所付出的努力，並承諾「180度逆轉」。

Wright, a former fracking executive, has emerged as the most forceful promoter of President Donald Trump’s plans to expand American oil and gas production and dismantle virtually every federal policy aimed at curbing global warming.

萊特曾擔任水力壓裂公司高管，現在他已成為總統川普擴大美國石油和天然氣生產，及廢除所有目標抑制氣候全球暖化聯邦政策的最強力提倡者。

“I wanted to play a role in reversing what I believe has been a very poor direction in energy policy,” Wright said as he kicked off the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston, the nation’s biggest annual gathering of the energy industry. “The previous administration’s policy was focused myopically on climate change, with people as simply collateral damage.”

萊特在於休士頓舉行的美國能源產業年度最大集會標普全球CERAWeek能源會議上表示：「我認為能源政策目前的發展方向很糟糕，我想扮演扭轉局勢的角色。前政府關注氣候變遷的政策目光短淺，民眾遭到池魚之殃」。

Wright was dismissive of renewable power, which he said played only a small role in the world’s energy mix. Natural gas supplies 25% of raw energy globally, before it is converted into electricity or some other use. Wind and solar only supply about 3%, he said.

萊特蔑視可再生能源，稱其在世界能源結構只占很小的比率。天然氣被轉化為電力或一些其他用途之前，供應全球25%的原始能源。他表示，風力和太陽能僅供應約3%。

He noted that gas also had a variety of other uses — it could be burned in furnaces to heat homes or used to make fertilizer or other chemicals — that were hard to replicate with other energy sources.

他指出，天然氣擁有多種用途，可在暖氣爐中燃燒使得房屋變得溫暖，及用來製作肥料和其他化學製品。這些用途是其他能源難以複製的。

On Monday, Wright signed the fourth export approval since Trump took office, extending an approval for the Delfin terminal off the coast of Louisiana. He said the Biden administration’s review of gas exports had found only modest impacts on global emissions and domestic U.S. prices.

萊特周一簽署自川普就職以來第四份出口許可，延長路易斯安那州離岸Delfin天然氣接收站許可。他表示，拜登政府對於天然氣出口的檢討，對於全球排放量和美國國內價格的影響不大。

On the topic of climate change, Wright said he didn’t deny that the planet was warming, calling himself a “climate realist.”

在氣候變遷議題上，萊特不否認地球正在暖化，自稱是「氣候現實主義者」。

“We have indeed raised global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50% in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting almost all of the world’s citizens out of grinding poverty, launching modern medicine,” he said. “Everything in life involves trade-offs.”

他表示：「全球大氣中二氧化碳濃度的確增加50%，人類平均餘命增加超過一倍、幾乎讓所有民眾擺脫赤貧、現代醫學開展，生活中每件事都是有得有失。」

川普蔑視司法 手段比獨裁者更惡劣

President Donald Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power.

美國總統川普和聯邦法院間衝突日益加劇，學者指出，與其他國家的類似爭端相比異常激烈。川普不像那些顛覆和重組法院的領導人，反而像是法官過於弱勢，完全拿他沒轍。

“Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist and coauthor of “How Democracies Die” and “Competitive Authoritarianism.”

哈佛大學政治學家、書籍「民主國家如何死亡」和「競爭式威權」共同作者李維茲基表示：「說真的，我從未見過這樣的事。」

“We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse,” he said. “These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”

他說：「我們檢視這些21世紀的比較案例，如匈牙利、波蘭和土耳其。從許多面向看，這個狀況更糟。川普就任最初兩個月的狀況，比我所知的其他任何民主倒退案例更加激進獨裁。」

There are many examples of autocratic leaders constraining the power of the judiciary by packing courts with compliant judges or by changing the laws that give them authority, he said. But it is extremely rare for leaders to simply claim the power to disregard or override court orders directly, especially so immediately after taking office.

他表示，獨裁領導人透過在法院安插順從的法官，及修改賦予他們權力的法律限制司法權力的事例很多。但領導人直接宣稱擁有無視和凌駕法院命令權力的狀況極為罕見，特別是在上任後就立刻這麼做。

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has purged thousands of judges from the judiciary as part of a broader effort to consolidate power in his own hands. But that required decades of effort and multiple constitutional changes, Levitsky said.

在土耳其，總統厄多安已將成千上萬名法官從司法體系中清除，這是他為鞏固自身權力所付出更廣泛努力的一部分。李維茲基說，但這需要歷經數十年的努力和多次修憲。

In Hungary, Prime Minister Victor Orban packed the constitutional courts with friendly judges and forced hundreds of others into retirement but did so over a period of years, using constitutional amendments and administrative changes.

在匈牙利，總理奧班在憲法法院安插對他友好法官，並迫使其他數百名法官退休，但他數年來是利用憲法修正案和行政改革這麼做的。

Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, then later tried to retroactively justify its actions with arguments distant from settled law and ordinary practice.

川普政府整個周末都無視一名聯邦法官下令禁止驅逐一群委內瑞拉男子，隨後又溯及既往，引用與既定法律和常規做法相差甚遠的論辯，試圖事後合理化其行動。

On Tuesday, Trump further raised the stakes by publicly calling for the impeachment of the judge who had issued the order, Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington.

在周二，川普進一步提高賭注，公開呼籲彈劾發布該命令的法官，即華府聯邦地區法院法官波斯柏格。

Levitsky said he was struggling to find a precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.

李維茲基表示，他難以找到川普政府所為的先例。

“The zeal with which these guys are engaging in increasingly open, authoritarian behavior is unlike almost anything I’ve seen. Erdogan, Chavez, Orban — they hid it,” Levitsky said.

李維茲基說：「這些人幹這些事愈發激情，毫不隱諱。厄多安、查維茲和奧班等人這樣胡搞時，還遮遮掩掩。」