Fortune's Robert Friedman writes:

Climate change is in the air here in Davos, and not just because it has started snowing again. Last night I moderated a dinner discussion about whether markets can save the planet. Nearly 100 people showed up, including London mayor Ken "Congestion Charge" Livingston, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, former U.S. Kyoto Treaty negotiator Stuart Eizenstat, Britain's boyish environmental minister David Miliband, wellness entrepreneur Steve Case (yes, that Steve Case), and Yale University professor Dan Esty, author of the recently published "Green Is Gold."

The question before the assembled guests: Are market mechanisms, like Europe's cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, capable of making a significant difference in reducing or slowing the pace of global warming. The consensus, agreed upon before the soup hit the table: No. But are governments any better at solving the problem?

For 150 years, companies have been polluting the atmosphere without having to pay the social costs, and governments have stood by idly. Now, in the last year, thanks largely to Hurricane Al (as in Gore), the winds are changing in the U.S., as they have in Europe. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who couldn't come to Davos because he broke his arm in a ski accident last month (a melting snow pack, one California Democrat joked), has endorsed a radical carbon-reduction plan in his state. The U.S. may never sign the Kyoto Treaty, as Eizenstat argued after dinner, but companies like GE and Wal-Mart have gotten religion, and green has become the new black. Esty argued that government needs to prod business with incentives, regulations, and taxes, to push the process forward. Frances Beinecke, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council in the U.S., said the developed world, which developed most of the problem, should figure out a way to help developing countries find ways to reduce emissions without strangling growth. And Miliband, on the fast-track for British Prime Minister, said government clearly had to lead the way--in Britain's case, by committing to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.

That's a long time away, maybe too long for the sake of the planet. But as Financial Times economics columnist Martin Wolf pointed out, humans don't like to take action until disaster strikes. That was a disonant note for the Davos crowd, which prides itself on optimism. Nick Francis, who runs a group in Australia called EasyBeingGreen dedicated to taking immediate actions to improve energy efficiency, jumped up from his chair, got in Wolf's face, and accused him of crimes equivalent to genocide.

It made for good theater, one of hundreds of such moments here this week. I'd like to think all this talk will do some good when the collective power represented at Davos descends from the mountain. But I fear it may add up to nothing more than carbon footprints in the snow.