Tomorrow's Green Economy requires a revolution in energy efficiency and energy infrastructure - so I was taken by Deutsche Bank's upcoming analysis that it is TLC that is a pre-condition for this revolution: transparency, longevity and certainty in policy regimes to enable capital to be invested with certainty, and at scale, reported in today's Observer

'A report from Deutsche Bank says that the UK does not have the right climate change strategy to attract international investment and is lagging behind other countries, such as Germany, France and China' it concludes.

'Britain's energy strategy lacks the level of transparency and certainty required to encourage investment, according to Deutsche Bank's study on the best places to do business. It comes as ministers prepare to launch six draft national policy statements on energy and climate change policies tomorrow'

"What investors want is transparency, longevity and certainty – TLC – in policy regimes to mobilise capital," said Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Bank's asset management division, which is based in New York.

"Many major emitters such as the US and the UK do not have enough TLC in their policy frameworks. Our rankings show that China has a lower risk for climate change investors, as does Germany, but the research also shows that in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, they have demonstrated their ability to deliver scale."

As we approach Copenhagen it is worth making the link with a number of other developments and arguments:-

1. How helpful is the way we frame the choice between growth vs sustainable development?  Later this week we have the great honour of launching Qualitative Growth, by Hazel Henderson and Fritjof Capra, seeking to reframe the growth vs development paradigm:  an energy revolution of the kind required does not sit easily within either the 'unlimited growth at all costs' mindset or a steady state rejection of innovation, and the incentives and frameworks required to bring that urgent transformation about..  And in this context read Hazel's brilliant paper, 'Changing the Game' also on forceforgood.com
    
2. How much can renewables really deliver in terms of the future energy mix, and over what period?  A recent report, again cited on forceforgood.com concludes that for China in 2030, all of it.  Scientists at Harvard University and Tsinghua University analyzed wind data from a state-of-the-art NASA global weather and climate model.  They found that onshore wind farms could profitably generate enough power to accommodate all of China's electricity demand projected for 2030, about twice its current consumption.  "Wind farms would only need to take up land areas of 0.5 million square kilometers, or regions about three quarters of the size of Texas," said researcher Xi Lu at Harvard University.  
    
3. How, not only, do we create the policy frameworks for to create 'Tomorrow's Green Economy' but how do we harness and deploy the scale of finance required.  Which of course takes us back to the Deutsche Bank 'TLC' report but also enables me to plug the recent WWF Australia study which concluded that 17 trillon USD needs to be deployed by 2030, that carbon pricing would certainly reinforce but that it is not even a nessary condition of this process of transformation.  ( A recent discussion with Shell cited another study running to 26 trillion USD so what the heck, we split the difference at 20 trillion USD!)  Rather, the arguments for 'climate prosperity', that the new economy and the new business models which will drive and underpin that economy, will generate such savings as to fuel their own logic and irresistable momentum - the challenge being how to create the enabling conditions to reach this critical threshold.  
   
   And again, I'm not sure how useful I find the growth vs sustainable development framework very helpful when i think about what we need to do to mobilise transformation on this scale - if you are interested, my own, and certainly not complete meanderings on this issue are included on this blog.  
    
4. How do we create the human capacity and infrastructure for the mindset shift required?  Firstly, to reinforce, again, the need for an understanding of systems thinking and to recognise the paradigm shift required to create the new mindset to move from a carbon to post-carbon, 'natural resources are freely available to resource constrained, future.  Secondly, to make the link to Tomorrow's Company's Climate Advisor's - David Vigar's - call for 'E-mission' Control centre: a manhattan project for the 21st century fit for purpose for the challenge we face, and harnessing the resources through our interconnected world to much more fully deploy the capabilities of business in partnership with the 'blessed unrest' civil society and government.