By James Peng and Nipa Piboontanasawat

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary was named as Barack Obama’s pick for secretary of state yesterday, urged corporations and charities to join governments to tackle problems of global warming, the financial crisis and terrorism.

“Our work is never more important because the government cannot solve all the problems alone,” Clinton said in opening remarks at his two-day Global Initiative summit in Hong Kong today. “We need partnership from the private sector and civil society.”

He pointed to challenges from global warming and disease, the scarcity of food, increasing scarcity of water, terrorism as seen in India last week and global trouble in financial markets.

Clinton agreed to disclose more than 200,000 contributors to his library and foundation and to separately incorporate his Clinton Global Initiative to reduce the risk of potential appearances of conflict of interest due to his wife’s new role, according to an aide to President-Elect Obama who declined to be identified.

Hillary, 61, said at a news conference yesterday that the U.S. cannot solve global threats without the world “and the world cannot solve them without America.”

The world needs to invest an extra $45 trillion by 2050 to develop clean technologies to halve the annual production of gases blamed for global warming, the International Energy Agency said in June. Richer nations want help in achieving such cuts.

‘All Pitch In’

“Each country should contribute” on climate change, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at Clinton’s panel today. “It’s very important for all of us to pitch in.” He said China is growing more environmentally conscious.

The Clinton Global Initiative, formed in 2005, brings together political and business leaders to develop solutions and raise funds for poverty relief. In three years, the initiative’s members have made nearly 1,200 commitments valued at $46 billion that have improved 200 million lives over 150 countries, Clinton said.

“Developed countries should take the lead, but it’s a mistake to say poor countries aren’t worried about it,” Clinton said today. “A lot of these issues are not clear. Every country that takes this seriously still has to know how to do it.”

In September in the initiative’s annual summit in New York, Clinton praised microfinance investors for helping “real people” make a “real rate of return” in poor nations as he cautioned against allowing the U.S. financial crisis to undercut anti-poverty aid. The Hong Kong summit is the initiative’s first meeting outside the U.S., Clinton said.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew are among the participants.

To contact the reporters on this story: James Peng in Hong Kong at jpeng7@bloomberg.net; Nipa Piboontanasawat in Hong Kong at npiboontanas@bloomberg.netLast Updated: December 2, 2008 00:27 EST