The climate-change approach that makes sense to me

ARTICLE: "Singing the Praises of a New Asia: Lawrence Summers Finds a Theme and a Receptive Audience," by Heather Timmons, New York Times, 19 April 2007, p. C5.

I let the great man (I am an unabashed fan) speak for himself (as paraphrased and quoted:

[telling hundreds of execs] that most of the action on global warming needed to "take place in the developing world."

The industrial world was responsible for much of the problem, he said, but most of the solutions must come from the developing world, where emissions are growing the fastest and infrastructure is still unbuilt. The developing world should be compensated and supported for taking actions "in the interest of all," he said.

Other themes he sounded:

... that growth and changes in Asia are the most important thing to happen during our lifetimes, that the United States and Europe have not yet appreciated the impact of these changes and that the global imbalances from the United States' current-account ... could have severe consequences.

Or present someone with "severe" opportunities that dovetail nicely with his advice on global warming responses:

In Beijing this January, he asked hundreds of economists and policy makers at a Global Development Network conference to consider the fact that $2 trillion from developing Asia invested in United States Treasury bills, was making a "zero real return." Imagine instead, he said, "all the opportunities in these countries for productive investments."

The big shift comes on investment flows, in part in response to rising energy infrastructure requirements, and therein lies the best and most logical response plan: take advantage of Asia's build-out to create infrastructure most appropriate to CO2 savings, and then use those resulting companies (the build-out will be so vast that a roll-up season--meaning lotsa mergers and acquisitions--ensues in global construction and transportation
and energy (and any infrastructure-determined industries) and those new behemoths will spread these new technologies to the Gap in coming decades.

Our job? Encouraging such developments with the creation and spreading of the best possible rule sets.