????中共十八屆三中全會召開之際，一大片烏云將籠罩在北京市的上空。這不是什么影射，只是實話實說。此時正值深秋季節，中國首都和其他城市高企的污染水平即將習慣性地迎來季節性飆升。美國宇航局地球觀測站(NASA Earth Observatory)剛剛宣布，中國東北城市哈爾濱的細顆粒物(PM2.5) 濃度高達每立方米1,000微克。相比之下，根據美國環保局（the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency）的空氣質量標準，PM2.5的濃度應該保持在每立方米35微克以下。

????用不了多久，這片陰云就會蔓延到人民大會堂內部：一些中國問題觀察人士認為，一如腐敗問題，環境污染已經對中國共產黨的執政地位構成最重大的威脅。中國的環境污染是一場大規模的悲劇：據估計，中國北方一些城市的人均壽命現已縮短了好幾年。把這些消逝的光陰擴大數百萬倍，大家就能深刻地體會到，環境污染造成的影響遠不止農田退化、工廠因停工帶來的經濟損失，以及種種生活上的不便（比如，一些城市的有車一族只有隔天才能開車出門），它還導致了巨大的人員傷亡。與此同時，中國新近崛起的中產階級越來越敢于公開評論污染問題。他們希望盡情享受自己辛苦打拼得來的財富，而無法讓孩子在戶外玩耍顯然有悖于所有人對富足生活的想象。

????那么，中國政府會采取行動嗎？經濟學家所稱的庫茲涅茨曲線(Kuznets curve，環保圈普遍把它叫做“越富裕、越綠色”曲線)確實顯示，中國政府會迫于國內的壓力，被迫采取措施，治理環境。根據這項由諾貝爾經濟學獎得主西蒙?庫茲涅茨率先做出的經驗觀測，一個國家剛剛步入工業化發展階段時，收入不平等和環境污染等大量問題會進一步惡化。然而，一旦該國的居民收入達到一定水平，情況就會開始好轉，呈現出一條倒U曲線。中國目前的人均年收入大約為6,000美元，恰好處于庫茲涅茨環境曲線通常掉頭向下的位置。換句話說，中國人現在夠有錢了，可以開始治理污染了。

????如果中國中產階級最終迫使政府采取行動治污，能得到好處的人或許不僅僅局限于長期遭受環境問題折磨的中國人自己，可能還包括世界其他地方的人們。尤其需要提及的是，如果中國這種來自國內的壓力重現于印度等國，它就有可能成為不僅是應對環境污染，甚至是應對全球變暖的最佳路徑。原因是，當今世界，全球性治理羸弱，只有讓局部利益與全局利益取得一致，或者說讓中國和世界其他國家的利益一致，全球性問題才有望迎來真正的轉機。（財富中文網）

????本文作者潘卡基?格瑪沃特是西班牙IESE商學院Rubiralta教席全球戰略學教授，著有《世界3.0》一書。

????譯者：葉寒????????

????A cloud will hang over the upcoming plenum of the Chinese Communist party in Beijing -- literally. It is late fall, and so pollution levels in China's capital as well as in other of its cities, always high, are going to go through their usual seasonal surge. The NASA Earth Observatory just announced that the northern city of Harbin saw concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) as high as 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter. For comparison, the NASA report said, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's air quality standards say PM2.5 should remain below 35 micrograms per cubic meter.

????And now, this pall will soon extend to within the great hall of people: Some China watchers are describing pollution -- along with corruption -- as one of the most significant threats to the legitimacy and continued rule of the Communist party. Pollution in China is a human tragedy on a vast scale: It has been estimated that in some northern Chinese cities, lifespans have already been shortened by several years. Multiply that many millions of time over, and you get a sense of the human toll, above and beyond the degradation of farmland, the economic costs of factory shutdowns, the inconvenience of being able to drive only every other day, and so forth. At the same time, China's new middle class, which is getting increasingly vocal about pollution, wants to enjoy the wealth it has worked so hard for and not being able to let one's kids play outdoors isn't anyone's idea of prosperity.

????Will the Chinese government act? What economists call the Kuznets curve -- popularly referred to in environmental circles as the richer-is-greener curve -- suggests Beijing will be forced to by local pressure. This is the empirical observation, first made by Nobel Prize winner Simon Kuznets, that many problems like income inequality and pollution first get worse as a country industrializes. But once a country's citizens reach a certain level of income, the situation starts to get better, producing an inverted-U curve. China's average per capita incomes, now around $6,000, are where environmental Kuznets curves are often supposed to turn down. In other words, China is now rich enough to do something about its pollution.

????If China's middle class finally forces its government to act on pollution, the benefits may accrue not only to long-suffering Chinese citizens but also to the rest of us. In particular, local pressures -- if reproduced in other countries such as India -- may be the best path for dealing with not only pollution but also global warming. Because in a world with weak global governance, the alignment of local interests with global interests -- the alignment of China's interests with the rest of the world's -- may represent the only real hope for real change.

????Pankaj Ghemawat is the Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE and the author of World 3.0.????