A couple of weeks ago, Gordon Brown was trailing a big investment in green tech as part of yesterday’s pre-budget report, but it seems to have been quietly dropped in place of a boost in home insulation. There is a certain amount of logic in this in the current climate – an investment in clean tech may only deliver in economic and environmental terms several years into the future whereas the insulation scheme, if done properly, will deliver economic and environmental benefits to the lower income sections of the community with a much quicker return on investment.

Barak Obama has made a similar promise on clean tech investment – it will be very interesting to see how this good intention manifests itself when the rubber hits the road next year.