Quick brain dump about climate commitments in the communique. First outstanding aspect - there are no commitments. No timetables, no targets, no amounts.
Bear in mind that the Obama administration has just announced a fiscal stimulus package which devotes $11 billion to upgrading their electricity grid. Many other OECD countries are in a similar position WRT the state of their grid and the need to improve it to incorporate sensible amounts of renewable energy. It surely would not have been too hard to aggregate the potential investment that involves and use it as a jumping off point for a commitment to green investment?
Let's be clear about this. The solutions for climate change exist. In some cases they are expensive, in some cases not. Where they are expensive, that's partly because, without government support, they are still being sold in small numbers, which holds the price up.
Why are they not being adopted? A huge range of reasons, but in many cases these are things that governments can fix, sometimes without even a great deal of cost. Things like planning laws, regulations governing connection to the grid, all the small barriers that vested interests can use to slow adoption of climate friendly solutions. And let us also not forget that a lot of the voting public either don't believe climate change will happen, don't believe it is a priority problem, or don't believe there is a solution to it, so there is less pressure on politicians to move than one might think.
So, even though there is a solid argument that green infrastructure could be a huge economic contributer to the world economy, even though there are solutions ready, RIGHT NOW, to be adopted in many, many countries, governments are not engaging in political leadership. They are not committing to the most basic, simple goals and they are deferring making decisions.
I'm not going to rant any more. I'm going to try and find some helpful figures instead.