日本經濟最大的敵人是……臺風？

????但甚至一個像日本這樣強大的經濟體也將受到影響。埃斯特萬表示，到2085年，日本可能需要額外投入306億至1279億日元來擴大日本所有的港口，以應對臺風造成的停運期。

????埃斯特萬說：“從本質上講，由于公民被迫躲避臺風，日本的經濟生產力將急劇下降。”根據他的估算，日本每年因臺風造成的整體損失可能高達70億美元。

????然而，像菲律賓一樣，日本的問題并不是毀滅性風暴出現頻率的增加，而是它們不斷升級的強度。

????“過去二十年左右，西太平洋的臺風實際上已經變得不那么頻繁，”麻省理工學院(MIT)的氣候學家克里?伊曼紐爾說。“但大多數模型預測表明，全球變暖最終將增加最高類別颶風和臺風的發生率。”對于像東京這樣的日本北方城市而言，這是一個壞消息，因為它們往往躲過了這些南方風暴的正面沖擊。

????那么，東京正在怎樣應對這些問題呢？除了加強基礎設施，日本領導人還在忙于遏制二氧化碳水平。自福島核泄漏事故以來，日本眾多的核電站已經或多或少地停止運營。目前還沒有跡象表明，這些核電站短期內會重新啟動。日本正在以前所未有的速度燃燒化石燃料，以維系經濟的正常運行。這個島國似乎無力阻止它已經召喚而來的復仇女神。（財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????But even a mighty economy like Japan's will suffer. Between 30.6 to 127.9 billion additional Yen alone could be needed by 2085 to expand all ports in the country to cope with the increase in downtime due to typhoons, says Esteban.

????"Essentially, as citizens are forced to take shelter, the economic productivity of the country dramatically decreases," says Esteban who reckons Japan's overall losses could amount to $7 billion annually thanks to Typhoons.

????Japan's problem, like the Philippines, isn't, however, an increase in the frequency of devastating storms; it is their increasing ferocity.

????"For the last two decades or so, typhoons in the western Pacific have actually been becoming less frequent," says climatologist Kerry Emanuel of MIT. "But most model projections suggest that global warming will eventually increase the incidence of the highest categories of hurricanes and typhoons." That's bad news for northern Japanese cities like Tokyo, which often escape the full force of these southern storms.

????So what is Tokyo doing about such problems? Apart from strengthening its infrastructure, the country's leaders find their hands tied over helping contain CO2 levels. Japan's numerous nuclear power stations have been more or less offline since the Fukushima disaster. And with no indication that they will fire up soon, the country is burning fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate to keep Japan Inc. in business. Japan, it seems, is powerless to stop the furies it has summoned.