Couldn't have said it better

From Stephanie Draper, Forum for the Future

"All eyes have been on G20 this week. The media excitement focused on the political ramblings, the Obama show and the protesters. But there was also a promise of a green tinge to our economic recovery.

It was a promise undelivered. The communique didn't deliver for the environment, and ultimately that will mean that it wont deliver for people or the economy either. It did better on the development and poverty side. But the lack of anything but a nod on the climate change side is a massive missed opportunity.

There is lots of important stuff in the 'historic deal' - tighter financial regulation,the beginning of a crack-down on tax havens and the like. The six point plan also includes strong support for the world's vulnerable which is great news. But there are no low carbon commitments within the huge financial stimulus package, and all the climate got was a deferral to do something later in the year in Copenhagen.

This is so frustrating. It ignores the fact that our environmental resources - and the degree to which they will be affected by climate change - are critical to our economic success. Leading businesses are starting to see climate change as a mainstream business risk that needs to be deal with alongside other key strategic issues. Why is it so hard for our political leaders to take the same approach to the economy? Even the support for the world's vulnerable feels more like a philanthropic add-on than a core element of how the recovering economy will work.

G20 was one of those big opportunities to rethink the way we operate as a global economy, to inject some new and different thinking of the sort captured in Jonathon Porritt's new pamplet Living within our means. On climate change it was potentially more important than Copanhagen - a unique chance to create a low carbon recovery and prevent us entering the cul-de-sac of a world warmed to dangerous levels.

But the summit didn't deliver on that. Our political leaders have once again deferred taking coordinated global action on climate change. [...]"

A very measured ditty. I would be far more splenetic. I see it as much worse. Rather than failing to grasp the opportunity, the G20 have deliberately promised a packaged that will make the situation far worse. In short it is a programme to encourage people to buy more stuff. Stuff takes carbon to make and ship. Using carbon is destroying the world.

It's a disaster.