From the Harvard Business Review blog, “The U.S. Must Grab the Lead on Green“:

After the Copenhagen Summit, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote about the importance of sustainability to America’s future competitiveness: “An Earth Race led by America — built on markets, economic competition, national self-interest and strategic advantage — is a much more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of voluntary, nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference.”

First the bad news. We’re already behind on the Earth Race.

“Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” a report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Breakthrough Institute, gives a bleak outlook. ITIF founder Rob Atkinson says that, between 2009 and 2013, the governments of China, Japan, and Korea will out-invest the U.S. three to one in CleanTech: $509 billion vs. $172 billion.

How did we get to this place? Have we lost the will to compete?

The full post is well worth reading here.