Chris Anderson (of "The Long Tail" fame) writes a great post about Bjorn Lamborg's new book: Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
. Among the myths that he dispels are Antarctic Melting, Polar Bears Disappearing, Mount Kilimanjaro Disappearing, and Rainfall decreasing.
Lomberg's solution is low carbon tax with high R&D subsidies. Anderson's suggestion is increasing the carbon tax and using the tax money to alleviate taxes elsewhere. I tend to side more with Chris Anderson on this issue (although I haven't read Lomberg's book yet so I can't speak expertly on his opinions), increasing the cost of emitting CO2 should drive companies to develop products that will emit less and thus be less affected by the tax. This has been done with other pollutants such as sulfur. However if a government wants companies in their region to take the lead in this, tax credits specific to this type of research will provide more to the "carrot" end of the equation. While generally I would like the government to allow free market forces to determine the flow of funds, if you want companies to Research and Develop products in a certain area doing what you can to decrease their costs will help.