微软日前宣布了新的内部碳税率，今天我们推送该公司总裁施博德（Brad Smith）的演讲《我们在增加碳排放费用同时加大可持续性》。

请看详细报道↓↓↓

从2009年起，微软就开始采取一系列行动来减少公司的碳排放量，目标是到2030年将公司运营所带来的碳排放量减少75%。微软推出了一系列新的举措来支持可持续发展。

Since 2009, Microsoft has made and met a series of commitmentsto reduce the company’s carbon footprint. While we’ve made progress toward our goal of cutting our operational carbon emissions by 75 percent by 2030. And we are taking new steps to do just that.

微软宣布了新的内部碳税率，将加倍征收公司各运营部门的碳排放费用，上调费率至每公吨碳排放15美金。

We are announcing that we will nearly double our internal carbon fee to $15 per metric ton on all carbon emissions.

为了让各业务部门都能从财务上承担起减少碳排放的责任，微软早在2012年就开始执行内部碳“税”政策。

This internal Microsoft “tax” was established in 2012 to hold our business divisions financially responsible for reducing their carbon emissions.

这些碳税收一方面将用于保持微软的碳中和状态，另一方面将用来帮助我们把可持续发展融入微软业务和技术的核心，以“技术为先”的方式实现可持续发展。

The funds from this higher fee will both maintain Microsoft’s carbon neutrality and help us take a tech-first approach that will put sustainability at the core of every part of our business and technology to work for sustainable outcomes.

在这里，我将重点分享微软在以下四个方面的新举措：

I’d like to share new steps we’re taking in four areas:

一、建设可持续发展的企业园区和数据中心

Building sustainable campuses and data centers

我们将继续建设、改造和运营我们的企业园区，减少对环境的影响。在位于华盛顿雷德蒙德的微软总部，我们正在新建17座大楼，面积总计250万平方英尺（约23万平方米）。

We will continue to build, renovate and operate our campuses in a manner that reduces our impact on the environment. At our headquarters in Redmond, Washington, we have started work to construct 17 new buildings totaling 2.5 million square feet.

在这些新楼以及园区内的其他地方，我们将不再使用化石燃料，并实现100%的无碳用电。

We will remove fossil fuels from these new buildings and run this new addition, as well as the rest of our campus, on 100 percent carbon-free electricity.

通过新的在线工具，我们将新大楼建筑材料的碳排放量减少了至少15%，并在朝着30%的目标努力。

We are also reducing the amount of carbon associated with the construction materials of our new buildings by at least 15 percent, with a goal of reaching 30 percent, through a new online tool.

加上我们的智能楼宇技术，微软将成为第一个实现“零碳排放”和“零浪费”目标的大型企业园区。

Combined with our smart building technology, Microsoft will be the first large corporate campus to reach zero-carbon and zero-waste goals.

微软的数据中心将持续关注效能和可再生能源的研发。

In our data centers, we will continue to focus on R&D for efficiency andrenewable energy.

2016年，微软曾宣布要利用更多可再生能源为数据中心供电，目标是希望可再生能源利用率能在2018年底前达到50%，并在下一个十年内达到60%，此后持续提高比例。

In 2016, we announced that we would power our data centers with more renewable energy, setting a 50 percent target by the end of 2018 and topping 60 percent early in the next decade while continuing to improve from there.

值得一提的是，我们提前一年实现了第一个目标，在这里我也想分享一个好消息：我们将在2019年底之前达到60%这一目标。

We hit the first target nearly a year ahead of schedule, and today we are sharing the news that we will reach the 60 percent milestone before the end of this year.

所以我们把下一个里程碑目标设定为到2023年实现70%的可再生能源利用率，并最终实现100%的目标。

We’re therefore setting our next milestone on the path to 100 percent renewable energy, aiming to surpass the 70 percent target by 2023.

我们还将发布新的由数据驱动的循环云计划，利用物联网、区块链和人工智能等前沿技术来监测包括服务器在内的数据中心资产的性能，并将数据中心资产的复用、转售和再循环利用操作流程化。

We’ll also launch a new data-driven circular cloud initiative using the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor performance and streamline our reuse, resale and recycling of data center assets, including servers.

除了在节能减排方面的长期投入，我们还将加大对水资源的关注度，启动新的水资源补充战略。到2030年，微软在水资源紧缺地区的数据中心将使用水资源的替代资源来支持数据中心的运转。

We will also add water to our long-standing carbon and energy commitments, launching a new water replenishment strategy where we will replace what our data centers consume in water-stressed regions by 2030.

二、利用数据科学加快研究步伐

Accelerating research through data science

数据对我们的工作至关重要，也是全球向低碳未来转型的关键所在。数据可以帮助我们更好地了解地球的健康状况，包括空气、水、土地和野生动物的状况。

Data is a critical part of our work and a global transition to a low-carbon future. Data can help tell us about the health of our planet, including the conditions of our air, water, land and the well-being of our wildlife.

然而要想获得大量相关数据，并将其转换成可操作性的智能，我们还是需要科技的帮助。虽然生活在信息时代，但涉及到环境数据时，我们往往缺乏真知灼见。

But we need technology’s help to capture this vast amount of data and convert it into actionable intelligence. Despite living in the Information Age, when it comes to environmental data we are still too often flying without real insights.

面对这一挑战，微软在2017年发布了地球人工智能计划。此后，我们还发布了两项新的API（应用程序接口），来帮助人们更广泛灵活地从大数据中获取洞察，解决和可持续发展相关的问题。

We founded our AI for Earth programin 2017 with this challenge in mind. Since then, we’ve launched two new APIs that help provide the scale and flexibility to transform how people working on sustainability issues process data and generate valuable insights.

目前，230多名被授权人员正在利用微软的智能云平台Azure和人工智能技术创造新的模式，发掘新的洞见。但是，通往可持续发展的路上，我们要做的还有很多。

More than 230 granteesare now using Azure and AI to create new models and discover new insights. But we have learned there’s still more we can do to accelerate this work.

今天，我们致力于将全球领先的环境科学数据汇集到Azure智能云上。这些大数据将包含卫星、航空影像和其他资料，需要上千万亿字节的储存空间。

Today, we’re committing to hosting the world’s leading environmental data science sets on Azure. These large government datasets contain satellite and aerial imagery, among other things, and require petabytes of storage.

通过在云上开放这些数据，我们将帮助全世界的被授权者和研究人员推进他们的工作。

By making them available in our cloud, we will advance and accelerate the work of grantees and researchers around the world.

我们也将继续把新的API和相关应用引进地球人工智能计划项目库，并将成熟的项目升级成平台级服务，就像我们之前为土地覆盖测绘项目做的那样。

We will also continue work to bring new APIs and applications to the AI for Earth gallery and mature projects into platform-level services as we’ve done with land cover mapping.

三、帮助客户打造可持续解决方案

Helping our customers build sustainable solutions

随着全球对可持续发展需求的增加，我们正比以往任何时候都更紧密地与客户开展合作，利用数字技术和人工智能来应对可持续发展的挑战。

As the world’s needs heighten, we are working more closely than ever with our customers to use digital technology and AI to address sustainability challenges.

如何帮助客户打造可持续的解决方案已成为微软各部门日益关注的焦点。在未来的几个月中，我们将更详细地介绍相关的产品开发和部署计划，来帮助客户和合作伙伴在推动业务增长的同时，实现可持续发展。

We are making this an increasing focus across every part of our company, and in thecoming months we’ll share more details about our plans to develop and deploy products to facilitate our customers’ and partners’ growth with sustainability in mind.

一直以来，我们都在利用新技术赋能客户和合作伙伴，帮助他们提高效率、重塑业务流程以及开发属于自己的解决方案，从而推动地球以一种更加可持续的方式发展。

Already we’re helping empower our customers and partners with new technology to help them drive efficiencies, transform their businesses, and create their own solutions to create a more sustainable planet.

在微软，我们把这种技术融合称为技术强度。我们也看到这种“技术强度”正在推动全球的可持续增长。

At Microsoft we call this infusion of technology tech intensity, and we’re seeing it propel sustainable growth around the globe. Let me share a few examples.

举例来说，艺康集团和沃旭能源利用微软智能云Azure、物联网和人工智能等技术有效提高了水资源保护的效率和可再生能源的利用率；

Companies like Ecolaband Orstedare improving water conservation and efficiency of renewable energy with Microsoft Azure, IoT and AI.

世界领先的谷物加工商瑞士布勒公司致力于为20亿人口提供更加健康安全的日常食物。

Buhler, one of the world’s leading grain processing providers, keeps food healthy and safe for 2 billion people every day.

他们计划到2020年减少30%的粮食浪费，并将生产消费者食物所需的能源消耗降低30%。

Their goal is to reduce 30 percent of waste and 30 percent of energy that goes into food production processing for customers by 2020.

美国一家叫做西尔维亚地球的小型初创企业正在利用人工智能帮助人们更好地了解森林状况，以更好地管理这些经济和环境资产。

Silvia Terra, a small start-up, is focused on using AI to improve our understanding of forests and better manage these economic and environmental assets.

通过参与微软地球人工智能计划，他们已经成功搭建了国家级的森林数据库，实现了对每棵树木数据的精确管理。

Through its work with AI for Earth, they’ve completed a national inventory of forests, down to the tree level.

这些公司的技术突破为我们实现未来经济的可持续增长提供了蓝图。

These companies’ technology breakthroughs offer a blueprint for sustainable economic growth.

微软与普华永道（英国分公司）联合开展的一项最新研究表明，加大跨行业运用人工智能的力度将有可能推动全球GDP到2030年提升4.4%，同时将全球温室气体排放量减少4%，相当于减少约24亿吨二氧化碳的排放量。

New researchwe commissioned with Pricewaterhouse Coopers UK (PwC UK) shows that greater adoption of AI across even a few sectors has the potential to boost global GDP by up to 4.4 percent, while also reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 4 percent.

这一数字等同于澳大利亚、加拿大和日本2030年预计二氧化碳排放量的总和。

This is approximately 2.4 gigatons of CO2, equivalent to zeroing out the 2030 annual emissions of Australia, Canada and Japan combined.

四、倡导改变环境政策

Advocating for environmental policy change

最后，公共政策在创造良好环境、加快减少碳排放上发挥着重要作用，这也是为什么微软宣布加入气候领导委员会这一国际政策研究机构。

Finally, public policy has an important role in creating enabling environments to accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions. That is why we’re joining today the Climate Leadership Council(CLC).

微软除了提出内部碳税的相关举措，还支持华盛顿州最近关于碳定价的投票方案。我们认为应该积极展开关于碳定价的讨论，从经济角度出发制定健全的方案推进减排。

In addition to our internal carbon tax, we supported the recent Washington state ballot measure on pricing carbon and believe it’s time for a robust national discussion on carbon pricing to lower emissions in an economically sound way.

解决这些全球环境挑战，任重而道远。实现这一雄心壮志需要微软所有人的努力，也需要我们与全球客户、决策者和组织共同合作。

Addressing these global environmental challenges is a big task. Meeting this raised ambition will take the work of everyone across Microsoft, as well as partnerships with our customers, policymakers and organizations around the world.

前路漫漫，但我们已经走出了兑现可持续发展最新承诺的第一步。时间紧迫，资源有限，我们没有时间等待所有的答案再行动，环境问题所带来的影响意义深远。

This road map is far from complete, but it’s a first step in our renewed commitment to sustainability. Time is too short, resources too thin and the impact too large to wait for all the answers to act.

今天，微软正扬帆起航，积极拥抱这一挑战，希望帮助全球每一人获得更多机会，成就不凡。

We are starting our journey to embrace that challenge and enhance opportunities for everyone on the planet today.