英国新闻听力 美国的气候变化问题（在线收听）

乔治·布什：把CO2封在瓶子里这种想法，对美国和我个人并没有任何经济意义。我会和我的朋友商量，我们会一起努力，但是我们国家的利益是放在第一位的，这点是不会改变的。

Climate Change in US

GEORGE W. BUSH: The idea of placing caps on CO2 does not make economic sense for America and I am, I will consult with our friends, we will work together, but it's going to be what's in the interest of our country first and foremost.

REPROTER: George W. Bush has less than a year left at the Whitehouse. In the very near future the new man or woman in charge of the next administration in Washington will almost certainly adopt a different tack on climate change.

BARACK OBAMA: I am among those senators who believe carbon from human activities contributes to climate change, that it is an immediate…

HILARY CLINTON: It's also time for a new approach to climate change; we know we've got to deal with global warming.

MALE: I am convinced that global warming is a real unpleasant danger, one that we should no longer wave away.

REPORTER: Regardless of who's sitting in the Whitehouse next year thousands of miles from east coast America, in another Washington, Washington state the powers that be leaving nothing to chance. In the state's main city, Seattle, they've decided if the federal administration isn't going to face up to global warming, then local civic government must lead the way.

GREG NICKEL: This issue tells me that the politics of Washington D.C are broken, fundamentally broken and that rather than continuing to fight the fights of 1992 or 1996 or 2000, we ought to be looking for a way to bring people together. Global warming threatens us all.

REPORTER: Seattle known variously as the Emerald city, the Jet city or the Gateway to Alaska is a city of more than half of a million people on the pacific coast of the U.S northwest just shy of the boarder with Canada. It's the home of Boeing, Starbucks and Grunge and the birth place of Jimi Hendrix.

In 2005 Seattle was declared the most literate major city in the United State, in 2006 it slipped to become second most literate but in the mean time it's become the focal point of a national movement. Three years ago the Kyoto Protocol to the international framework convention on climate change came into force. It was designed to reduce emissions of green house gases but the United States, the world's biggest single emitter refused to ratify it. Along with Kazakhstan it still refuses to ratify it.

For Greg Nickels, the mayor of Seattle it was time for action. And if it wasn't going to come from the other Washington, it would have to come from his.

GREG NICKELS: When the Kyoto Protocol became law in a hundred and forty one countries but it wasn't going to become law in my country. I thought it was time for Seattle to stand up and say we will find a way locally to meet this challenge. And if it was only Seattle it would really not mean very much, we're a very small slice of global green house gas pollution. So I challenged mayors across the country to join with me so that it wouldn't be strictly symbolic. So we hoped that we would get a hundred and forty one mayors, one for every country that had signed Kyoto. And we went about that, we found that it was remarkably easy to engage other cities in this and we now have some seven hundred and eighty cities that have signed on. They all have pledged to take local action to reduce their emissions by the amount called for in Kyoto and they represent one in four Americans, about seventy eight million people. So it's not symbolic, it's real and we think it's going to move our country not only to rejoin the community of nations but to help lead this effort.

REPROTER: What was your reaction when you found out that your government was not going to sign up to Kyoto?

GREG NICKEL: Well I was um, I was angry and embarrassed. I joined with other representatives at the Montreal meeting of the parties in December of 2005 to communicate to the rest of the world that we have intelligent life in America and that we will rejoin this effort. That what the Bush administration is doing in first denying there's a problem and then acknowledging the problem but refusing to do anything about. It does not represent the aspirations of the American people.

REPORTER: Seattle started life as a frontier outpost and today its still prides itself on being at the forefront of things, a cutting edge sort of a place.

美国的气候变化问题

乔治·布什：把CO2封在瓶子里这种想法，对美国和我个人并没有任何经济意义。我会和我的朋友商量，我们会一起努力，但是我们国家的利益是放在第一位的，这点是不会改变的。

记者：乔治·布什还有不到一年的时间就要结束他在白宫的任期了。毫无疑问，在不久后入主白宫的新男主人或是女主人，将会在气候变化这个问题上上采取一种完全不同的举措。

巴拉克·奥巴马：我和很多的参议员一样，认为人类活动产生的CO2会对其气候变化产生影响，解决这个问题是当务之急……

希拉里·克林顿：是对气候变化采取新措施的时候了，我们现在正在解决全球变暖的问题。

男士：我深信全球变暖真的是一个令人不愉快的威胁，我们不应该再拒绝接受这个事实了。

记者：不管明年谁坐镇白宫，在美洲东岸的几千里海岸的另一个华盛顿，华盛顿州声明事情会将圆满解决。在这个州的主要城市，西雅图，他们已经决定如果联邦政府再不直面全球变暖这个议题，那么当地政府将会率先出击。

格雷格·尼可：这个问题告诉我们华盛顿的政策正在崩溃，并且是从基础上崩溃的，不应该继续1992，1996或是2000的做法，我们应该寻求让人们共同合作的方法。全球变暖对我们所有人都有威胁。

记者：西雅图一直有翡翠城市、喷气机之城、阿拉斯加门户之美名，它位于美国西北部的太平洋海岸线上，人口超过50万，与加拿大接壤。它还是波音飞机、星巴克、油渍摇滚的发源地，同时，这片土地还孕育了吉他之神吉米·亨得里克斯。

在2005年，西雅图被评为美国最有文化氛围的城市，2006年，它滑到了第二位，但是同时，他成为全国运动的一个中心城市。三年前，《京都议定书》规划了全球在气候变化这个问题上的行动框架并且正式生效。这项协议旨在减少温室效应的气体排放，但是，美国，这个世界最大的气体排放国家却拒绝执行。同时拒绝执行的还有哈萨克斯坦。

格雷格·尼可，这位西雅图的市长认为这项协议势在必行。如果华盛顿政府不准备采取措施，西雅图将会行动。

格雷格·尼可：当《京都议定书》成为141个国家的法律时，我们国家却没有。我认为现在是西雅图挺身而出，大声宣告我们自己本身可以找到一个解决之道去迎接这个挑战。如果只是西雅图，可能效果不是很明显，我们只是温室效应的气体污染源的一小部分，所以我呼吁全国的市长们都加入这项运动，不要让它变成一种象征性的活动。我希望我们能集合141位市长，每位市长代表一个签署《京都议定书》的国家。当我们进行这项活动的时候，我们发现在其他城市都得到了积极的响应，目前已经签名的城市已经有780个。他们都保证会按照《京都议定书》的要求，在当地采取行动以减少气体的排放量，他们代表了四分之一的美国人，大约7800万美国人，所以这不仅仅是象征性的，它是实事求是的，我们觉得这项运动推动我们的国家，不仅能让整个民族团结起来还能为共同达到这个目标而努力。

记者：当政府决定不签署《京都议定书》时，你的反应是什么？

格雷格·尼可：呃，我当时很生气、很困窘，我和蒙特利尔会议的其他代表一起在2005年12月的多边环境协定上与其他国家沟通，向他们说明我们美国人有智慧去重新团结起来共同努力。而布什政府却首先否认了这个问题，之后他虽然承认，但是拒绝去解决。但是这并不代表美国其他人的愿望。

记者：西雅图以开拓者的姿态出发了，今天，它依然为走在世界的前端而自豪，它是世界最前端的地方。