2023届高考英语二轮复习外刊阅读训练1

23年高考英语外刊阅读训练——阅读理解：欧洲在电动汽车上的倒退对气候来说是个坏消息 【原标题】 European backsliding on electric vehicles is bad news for the climate 【原文】 Worldwide, the planes, trains and automobiles we use to get around pumped around 7.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2021, one-fifth of all anthropogenic emissions. Some three-quarters of transport emissions came from just one source — the exhausts of road vehicles. Converting road transport to run on green energy would be a huge step towards achieving net zero emissions by mid-century, a change needed if we are to limit global warming to ‘safe’ levels. This is why policymakers have been nudging car makers to accelerate efforts to bring an end to the manufacture of vehicles fitted with an internal combustion engine. It’s a no-brainer. In the European Union, at least, it seemed that the two sides were strapped in, ready to reach that destination by 2035. However, the past few weeks have seen the European Commission embroiled in a row with Germany, Italy and some other EU members over implementation of the 2035 deadline. This has been resolved, but only through a concession to Germany’s powerful automotive industry. New cars with internal combustion engines can continue to be sold after 2035, provided the engines use carbon-neutral fuels instead of diesel, petrol or compressed and liquefied gases. These are climate-damaging moves from a region that has so far led the world in policies for decarbonizing transport. The problem lies in the phrase ‘carbon-neutral fuels’. These fuels rely either on inputs such as ‘green’ hydrogen, which is made by splitting water using renewable electricity, or on feedstocks such as biomass. The technologies used to make these fuels are inefficient, expensive and untested at scale. Moreover, claims of climate neutrality — based on the idea that the CO2 emitted by their combustion was absorbed relatively recently from the biosphere, or that CO2 produced during their manufacture was prevented from e