鑽石舞台

At just 12 years old, I witnessed the devastating impact pollution was having on Iran, my parents' home country. On one of my summer visits, I witnessed smog so heavy it completely blanketed the air, obscuring the stars I wanted to trace out of the night sky. I decided to read more about climate change in Iran, and I became increasingly alarmed, particularly when I learned the fact that temperatures in the Middle East were rising more than twice the global average. Armed with this knowledge, I decided to confront my relatives. But I was shocked when they informed me that they knew almost nothing about climate change.

在我只有12歲的時候，我目睹了污染對我父母的家鄉伊朗造成的毀滅性影響。有一年暑假，我回了家，看見那厚重的霧霾籠罩了大氣，煙霧遮蓋了夜空中的星星。我決定閱讀更多關於伊朗氣候變化的書籍，對此事也越來越關注，特別是當我了解到中東的氣溫上升幅度是全球平均水平的兩倍多的時候。有了這些知識，我決定與我的親戚對質。但當他們告訴我他們對氣候變化幾乎一無所知時，我感到十分震驚。

So I began to dig into the lack of climate education in Iran, and I found a study that read only five percent of Iranian students could properly explain the greenhouse gas effect. As I continued to scour the internet for more information, I began to connect the dots. From what I could see, there was a severe lack of climate resources available in Farsi, Iran's native language.

所以我開始研究伊朗缺乏氣候教育的問題，我發現一篇報道，報道論述只有5%的伊朗學生可以正確解釋溫室氣體效應。我繼續在互聯網上搜尋更多信息時，並開始把這些點聯繫起來。在我看來，伊朗的官方語言——波斯語——嚴重缺乏有關氣候的資料。

Now, I was still determined to educate my relatives, so I decided to work with my mom to translate climate resources into Farsi so I could teach my aunts and uncles about how climate-change-induced disasters were impacting millions of Iranians. As I watched my relatives read my translations, I had never been happier to see fear plastered all over their faces --

我仍決心想讓我的親戚了解更多，因此，我和我的母親一起，將氣候相關的資料翻譯成波斯語，這樣我就可以讓我的阿姨和叔叔們知道氣候變化引發的災難是如何影響數百萬伊朗人的。看着我的親戚們讀着我的譯文時，看着他們恐懼的眼神，我從來沒有如此快樂過——

because reading my translations had succeeded in convincing them that climate change was a real and pressing threat.

因為通過閱讀我的譯文，他們終於相信：氣候變化是一個真實而緊迫的危機。

Now, my story is anecdotal. But the fact that the vast majority of scientific research is only available in English is a big problem when it comes to climate change ...

我的故事只是個小小的趣聞。但是，當涉及到氣候變化時，絕大多數科學研究只提供英語版的內容，這一事實是一個大問題……

because most people in the world don't speak English. In fact, 75 percent of them do not speak English at all. Yet, according to a 2012 study on Scopus, the world's largest database for peer-reviewed journals, 80 percent of articles are written entirely in English. Even the United Nations' IPCC report, widely regarded as one of the most renowned pieces of climate literature in the world, is only officially available in the six UN languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. But these are languages that account for less than half of the world's speaking population. Meaning, the majority of people on our planet are unable to understand the documents and agreements being issued by the world's highest international political body. This lack of easily accessible documents and resources leads to misinformation and low public interest around tackling issues such as climate change.

因為世界上大多數人都不會說英語。事實上，世界上75%的人完全不懂英語。然而，根據全球最大的同齡評議期刊數據庫Scopus在2012年的一項研究指出，百分之八十的文章完完全全是用英語寫的。即使是被認為是世界上最著名的氣候文獻之一的聯合國IPCC報告，也只被官方譯成了六種聯合國語言：阿拉伯文、中文、英文、法文、俄文和西班牙文。不過，說這六種語言的人只占了世界人口少於一半的數量。這意味着，我們地球上的大多數人無法看命白世界上最高國際政治機構發布的文件和協議。這種易獲取的文件和資料的缺乏導致了信息的誤傳，以及公眾對解決氣候變化等問題較低的興趣。

In fact, just six years ago, 40 percent of adults in the world had never heard of climate change. Let me repeat that. Two out of five adults had never heard of climate change. When looking at specific regions where this problem lies, we can see that multiple studies have found, in Africa, there was a severe lack of climate education and curriculum available in Africa’s Indigenous and local languages. This lack of information only hurts those who need access to it the most. In countries such as Japan and the Philippines, climate change has worsened typhoons and disrupted agricultural industries. In these and the other 10 countries worst impacted by climate change, only one, Canada, is a majority English-speaking.

事實上，就在六年前，世界上40%的成年人從未聽說過氣候變化。讓我重複一遍。五分之二的成年人從未聽說過氣候變化。當我們觀察這個問題所在的具體地區時，我們可以看到，多項研究發現，在非洲，嚴重缺乏一些被譯成本土語言的氣候教育資源及課程。這種信息缺乏往往只會傷害那些最需要獲取信息的人。在日本和菲律賓等國，氣候變化加劇了颱風，擾亂了農業產業。在這些國家和其他10個受氣候變化影響最嚴重的國家中，只有一個國家，即加拿大，是一個以英語為主要語言的國家。

Languages remain a significant barrier to the global transfer of scientific knowledge -- be it through the press, through schools or through political processes. In an effort to close the climate translation gap, I decided to start Climate Cardinals, and international youth-led nonprofit working to make climate education more accessible to those who don't speak English. We work with over 8,000 bilingual student volunteers who translate climate information in exchange for community service hours. In just over a year, we've translated hundreds of thousands of words of climate information into over 100 languages, including Yoruba, Somali, Swahili and Gujarati. If a ragtag group of teenagers that congregate through social media can do this work, imagine the impact that a concentrated effort by governments, scientists and policymakers would have. Groups of people that are being disproportionately affected by climate change deserve to have access to the resources they need to make sense of these disasters that are destroying their communities.

語言仍然是全球科學知識傳授的重要屏障——無論是通過媒體，通過學校或政治程序。為了減少語言障礙為氣候行動帶來的差距，我決定成立氣候紅雀組織，這是一個由國際青年領導的非營利組織，致力於讓那些不懂英語的人能接觸到氣候教育。我們與8000多名雙語學生志願者合作，他們翻譯氣候信息，以換取社區服務時間。在短短一年多的時間裡，我們已經將成千上萬字的氣候信息翻譯成100多種語言，約魯巴語、索馬里語、斯瓦希里語和古吉拉特語。 如果一群參差不齊的,通過社交媒體聚集起來青少年能做出如此貢獻，試想一下各國政府、科學家以及政策制定者齊力能產生多大的影響。這些被氣候變化影響深遠的群眾，絕對有權力使用到他們需要的資源，以便理解這些正在摧毀他們家園的災難。

The more people are informed about the climate crisis, the greater chance we have to coordinate collective efforts in protection of the future of our planet. Because every single person in the world, every single person in this room, has the power to further climate action.

人們對氣候危機的了解越多，我們在保護我們星球的未來時，就能聚集更多力量。因為世界上的每一個人，這個房間裡的每一個人，都有能力進一步採取氣候行動。

So we must engage people from every country, young and old, to join the fight for climate justice. English cannot be the barrier to entry. Thank you.

因此，我們必須讓每個國家的人，無論老少，都加入到為氣候正義而戰的行列中來。我們不能把「懂英語」當成入場券。謝謝。