C
The temperature is sharply rising with each passing day. People, including many experts, find it difficult to slow down the process. However, leaving coal and major fossil fuels in the ground could help to limit climate change in the future, according to a new study. That is to say, a third of oil reserves on the earth, half of gas reserves and over 80 percent of current coal reserves should not be used before the year 2050. If we are to prevent global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius in the near future, we ought to carry some measures to severely control the emissions from factories vehicles and even our daily-life cooking. However, it is a goal that seems to be impossible in our eyes.
“Policy makers in different countries must realize that their attempt to completely use the fossil fuels within their countries is wholly incompatible(矛盾的) with their hope to reach the 2-degree goal,” Dr. Christophe Mc Glade at University College London’s Energy Institute said in a statement. “If they go ahead with developing their own resources,” he added, “they must be asked which reserves elsewhere should remain unburnt in order for the carbon budget not to go beyond the limit.”
It’s not surprising to see how tapping into these unused reserves would be attractive. Energy-related industry is a big business all over the world. There are many coal reserves in China, Russia and the United States, along with over 260 thousand million barrels of oil reserves in the Middle East. Not to mention that oil is currently being developed in the Arctic. Companies spent over $670 billion last year in the expansion of fossil fuels, but according to the new model used in this latest study, developers may need to rethink their plans to develop these underground resources so as to make some contributions to control the world temperature from rising high in the future.
“We’ve now got practical figures of the quantities and locations of fossil fuels that should remain unused in trying to keep within the 2-degree temperature limit,” added Mc Glade. World leaders and policy makers should take the advice to heart, because a recent IPCC report warned that if immediate and great actions are not taken soon, climate change will cause irreversible(不可逆转的) impacts on environments worldwide, leaving the world an unsafe place for us to live in.
50. According to Paragraph 1, our goal is to .
A. discover more fossil fuels
B. slow down the climate change
C. refuse to use reserves on the earth
D. keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius
51. The underlined word “emissions” in Paragraph 1 refers to .
A. things that are sent out into the air
B. products that are made from fossil fuels
C. factors that cause the climate change
D. changes that happen after temperature rise
52. According to what Mc Glade said in Paragraph 2, all countries should .
A. make full use of their fossil fuels
B. work together towards the 2-degree goal
C. find better ways to dig out the coal
D. care about the global carbon budget
53. We can infer from Paragraph 3 that great efforts have been made in .
A. digging out the oil in the Middle East
B. getting people to rethink their fuel plans
C. developing fossil fuels around the world
D. developing energy-related industry worldwide
54. What is the author’s attitude towards the future of temperature control?
A. Confident. B. Negative. C. Satisfied. D. Unclear.
