This year will be among the three hottest on record in a new sign of man-made climate change that is aggravating “extraordinary weather” such as hurricanes, droughts and floods, the United Nations said on Nov. 6th.

联合国在11月6日发布报告称，2017年将成为有史以来最热的三年之一，这说明人类活动造成的气候变暖已经日益加剧，并导致了一系列的“极端天气”，例如飓风、干旱、洪水等自然灾害。

The UN report is meant to guide almost 200 nations meeting from Nov. 6-17 in Bonn, Germany, to try to bolster the 2015 Paris climate pact despite a planned US pullout.

2017年联合国气候大会于本月6日至17日在德国波恩召开，该份报告旨在为本次大会提供指导方针，并激励各国完成2015年制定的《巴黎协定》中的各项指标，尽管美国已经决定退出该协定。

“2017 is set to be in top three hottest years,” the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said, projecting average surface temperatures would be slightly less sweltering than a record 2016 and roughly level with 2015, the previous warmest.

联合国下属的国际气象组织（WMO）表示，2017年已经注定成为史上三大最热的年份之一，并且预计今年的平均地表温度虽比2016年稍低，但将大致与2015年的持平，2015年的地表温度曾打破了历史上的最高纪录。

And 2017 would be the hottest on record without a natural El Nino event that releases heat from the Pacific Ocean about once every five years. El Nino boosted global temperatures in both 2015 and 2016.

此外，2017年也将会是历史上没有厄尔尼诺现象影响的最热年份。厄尔尼诺现象每隔五年从太平洋释放大量热量，2015和2016年的高温均是由厄尔尼诺引起。

The Bonn meeting is due to work on a “rule book” for the Paris Agreement, which seeks to end the fossil fuel era in the second half of the century by shifting the world economy to cleaner energies such as wind and solar power.

本次波恩大会旨在为《巴黎协定》提出具体的规划安排，力争在本世纪下半叶前停止世界经济对于化石燃料的依赖，转而使用清洁能源，如风能和太阳能。

The WMO said average surface temperatures in 2017 were about 1.1C above the pre-industrial era in data from January to September, nearing the most ambitious limit of 1.5C set by the Paris Agreement.

国际气象组织还说，2017年1至9月的平均地表温度已经比工业化前的温度高了1.1摄氏度，已经十分逼近《巴黎协定》设置的1.5摄氏度的上限。

What Is the Paris Agreement?

什么是《巴黎协定》？

The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020. The language of the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 196 parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015. As of October 2017, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the agreement. The Agreement aims to respond to the global climate change threat by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

《巴黎协定》是在联合国气候变化框架公约（UNFCCC）内签署的一项气候协定，用于缓解和适应温室气体排放，并为应对温室气体排放筹集资金，协定将于2020年正式生效。协定内容由在巴黎举行的第二十一次UNFCCC会议上的196个成员协商完成，在2015年12月12日表决通过。截止2017年10月，共有195个成员签署了该协定。《巴黎协定》的目标是在本世纪内全球气温的上升幅度较工业化前不超过2摄氏度，并力争将气温上升幅度控制在1.5摄氏度之内。

In the Paris Agreement, each country determines, plans and regularly reports its own contribution it should make in order to mitigate global warming. There is no mechanism to force a country to set a specific target by a specific date, but each target should go beyond previously set targets.

在《巴黎协定》内，每个国家都需要制定和报告其为缓解全球变暖而做出的具体方案。虽然协定并未规定一国须在某一时间节点前制定出相应的目标，但所设定的指标必须高于先前的指标。

In June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement, causing widespread condemnation in the European Union and many sectors in the United States. Under the agreement, the earliest effective date of withdrawal for the U.S. is November 2020.

2017年6月，美国总统特朗普宣布了美国从协定内退出的决定，招来了欧盟和美国国内各界强烈的批评。根据协定的内容，美国最早将在2020年11月正式退出协定。

VOCABULARY

aggravate: v. 加重；恶化

bolster: v. 支持；支撑

mitigate: v. 缓和；减轻