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I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, back in the '80s and '90s.
20世纪80到90年代，我在委内瑞拉的加拉加斯出生并长大。
Venezuela is a beautiful country, rich with natural treasures from beaches to rainforests.
委内瑞拉是一个美丽的国家，拥有从海滩到热带雨林等各种丰富的自然宝藏。
But one thing that people don't quite realize is that we also have really tall mountains.
但人们没有意识到的一件事是，我们也拥有非常高的高山。
These are part of the Andes, and they stretch all the way down from Chile and Argentina.
这些山属于安第斯山脉的一部分，沿着智利和阿根廷一直向南延伸。
And they're also home to some of the very few tropical glaciers in the world.
这些山脉也是世界上为数不多的热带冰川的故乡。
Back in 1910, when the first map was drawn, Venezuela used to have five tropical glaciers, which we used to call the five white eagles.
1910年的第一张地图显示，委内瑞拉曾有五个热带冰川，我们过去称之为五只白鹰。
Today, unfortunately, there's only one left, and it covers an area which is smaller than Central Park in New York City.
不幸的是，现在这些热带冰川现在只剩下一个了，它的面积比纽约市的中央公园还小。
These glaciers have been disappearing because of the use of a resource that we extract not too far from them: oil.
这些冰川之所以消失，是因为我们利用的从冰川不远处开采出来的资源：石油。
As a Venezuelan, my relationship with oil is complicated.
作为委内瑞拉人，我与石油的关系很复杂。
On the one hand, oil is the resource that helped my country develop, as well as human civilization.
一方面，石油是帮助我国发展的资源，也是帮助人类文明发展的资源。
On the other hand, it's a resource that slowly but surely fuels an existential threat.
另一方面，这种资源能够缓慢加剧一种对人类生存构成威胁的风险。
Climate change.
气候变化。
We now know that to avert the worst impacts of climate change, we're going to have to decarbonize everything that we do and everything that surrounds us.
我们现在知道，为了避免气候变化造成最糟糕的影响，我们必须要对我们的一切行为和我们周围的一切事物进行脱碳。
And to do that within the next three decades.
并在未来30年内完全做到这一点。
These include things like transitioning from oil, natural gas to clean sources of electricity; electrifying all of our vehicles; rethinking the way that we make our buildings and cities.
这些措施包括不再使用石油和天然气，转为使用清洁能源；将所有车辆更换为电车；重新思考我们建造建筑和城市的方式。
The good news is that technologies to do some of these things already exist.
好消息是，已经有技术能够帮助我们实现其中的一些目标。
And legislation to frame and direct this effort is starting to be put in place.
规范和指导这些措施的立法也开始到位。
The bad news is that even if we do all of these things, it will still not be enough.
坏消息是，即使做了所有这些事情，也还远远不够。
There are still large sectors of our economy that will need to be decarbonized for which we don't have the technology yet.
我们的经济体仍有许多部门需要脱碳，而我们还没有掌握相应的技术。
These include the things like manufacturing processes that are used to make everything that surrounds us, from the cement and steel that holds our buildings together to the chemicals and materials that we use to make the goods that we use in our daily lives.
例如制造我们身边各种物品的制造部门，它的生产流程就需要进行脱碳。这些流程涉及到生产用于建造建筑物的水泥和钢铁，以及日常生活物品所需的化学物质和材料。
Things like the chair that you're sitting in, your shoes, the cars that you use, and all the devices that we use every day.
比如你正在坐的椅子，你的鞋子，你乘坐的汽车，以及我们每天使用的各种各样的设备。
The chemical manufacturing industry alone accounts for 10 percent of the energy consumption.
仅化工制造业的能源消耗就占能源消耗总体的10%。
And 20 percent of the carbon emissions from industry.
20%的碳排放来自工业。
These emissions arise from the use of fossil fuel combustion to generate the heat that is required to drive processes inside of our old and inefficient chemical plants.
这些排放来源于化石燃料燃烧产生的热量，我们效率低下的老旧化工厂依靠这些热量推动生产制造。
One way to start fixing the issue will be to use electricity instead of heat from fossil fuels to drive the processes inside of these plants.
解决这个问题的一种方法，是用电力取代化石燃料的热量来推动工厂内部的生产。
Sounds easy enough, right?
听起来很简单，对吧？
Just unplug the natural gas pipelines, plug in the electrical wire, and make sure that you source electricity from clean sources like solar, wind or nuclear.
只要拔下天然气管道，插上电线，确保你的电力来自太阳能、风能或核能等清洁能源。
Unfortunately, in reality, it's much harder than that.
不幸的是，在现实中，这要困难得多。
We're going to have to come up with new chemical reactions that can source their energy directly from electricity.
我们将需要构想能够直接从电力中获取能量的新的化学反应。
These are called electrochemical reactions.
这被称为电化学反应。
And it's what my research group at New York University is focusing on: figuring out electrochemical paths that can create direct links between clean electricity and molecules.
这也是我在纽约大学的研究小组重点关注的问题：找出可以在清洁电力和分子之间建立直接联系的电化学路径。
In electrochemical reactions, heat is replaced by electricity as an energy source.
在电化学反应中，能量来源从热能变为电能。
This allows us to operate reactors and carry out reactions at room temperature with minimal energy losses.
这使得我们能够在室温下以最小的能量损失操作反应堆和进行反应。
But the problem is that for electrochemical reactions to become viable, they will need to be more efficient and cost competitive than the heat-powered ones that we use today.
但问题是，为了让电化学反应真正得到应用，我们需要让它比目前使用的热能反应效率更高，且成本更低。
That means that electrochemical reactors will need to transform raw materials into products very efficiently, with minimal waste and very selectively.
这意味着电化学反应堆需要在浪费最少且高选择性的情况下，高效地将原材料转化为产品。
This will then in turn incentivize chemical manufacturers to switch to electrochemical production processes instead of deploying new fossil fuel chemical plants.
这反过来将激励化学制造商转向电化学生产，而不是继续使用化石燃料。
