When I started this blog back in September, I wanted to promote the idea of embarking on a ‘green new deal’ to deal with the economic situation that has continued to unfold since then. Tomorrow the G20 meet to discuss things (as they should), but with no imagination whatsoever having been demonstrated by a major politician since the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis began right back in 2007.

All media coverage I’ve witnessed surrounding the economic turmoil has been incredibly boring. The fact that there is a “lack of credit” has been repeated endlessly in myriad ways. Gordon Brown and the economists we come into contact with through most of the Western media are only capable of talking about how to reverse this situation because it’s what their experience has taught them is a suitable response.

Europe (and France especially) are slightly more progressive calling for regulation of the financial system but there has been no thinking or analysis that inspires a creative response to the challenge that faces us. Media commentary gets as far the rational fear of protectionism internationally and then dries up.

Despite both sides of the Atlantic using the phrase “green new deal”, investment in energy reduction and clean energy generation is not happening on any meaningful scale, at least not in the UK, as this article explains.

Money is being ploughed into the economy to feebly attempt to increase liquidity whilst no-one is articulating properly which sectors need to grow as a result. The language of the media (literally this is quote from Newsnight on Monday night) is that “saving the world” is what will happen if we go back onto the path of endless growth, but failing to mention which sectors will grow, except of course that magically “things will go back to how they were before”.

Despite the fact that switching back to credit-fuelled growth is looking increasingly unfeasible anyway, it is the consumption that drove our previous system which is causing the climate to be disrupted. Remaining on an economic growth-based trajectory of CO2 is pretty much guaranteed to ruthlessly destroy “the world” as we know it in terms of it being an inhabitable place for large numbers of humans. The language being used in the mainstream is astonishingly lax and inconsistent given that the severity and causes of climate change are now widely acknowledged.

Sectors of the economy that reduce CO2 and make our use of energy more efficient should be helped to grow, and they should be funded by responsible regulated finance within the context of overall massively decreased borrowing, including against national debts. Our whole way of life has to change dramatically and we must embrace technological change to cushion the return to a much more localised economic system. Doing this globally by finding the right technologies and innovation policies, and avoiding outright protectionism, is the only hope we have to get through this.

I am not attending the G20 protests tomorrow, but I know a lot of people who are, and I am there in spirit with those of them who understand the challenges faced in articulating a well-thought-through set of economic policies. Too many “anti” people don’t understand that calling for the end of protectionism like the Common Agriculture Policy is essentially endorsing a free market approach to global trade where we ship food around the world at high-speeds using dirty fuel. Instead we should all become sufficient from our own resources, but without resorting to punitive protectionism that threatens stability.

My view of the G20 leaders is not that they are evil or slaves to any particular ideology. Just that so far they have proved themselves entirely incapable of coming up with anything near an acceptable response to these vast challenges.