The secretary for future vision is considering how many South Koreans it takes to change a million lightbulbs. No joke.

Kim Sang-hyo, the president's extravagantly titled right-hand man, is trying to create more than 940,000 green jobs and improve his country's energy efficiency at the same time. Switching every bulb in every public building in South Korea to light-emitting diodes by the end of this year is one, very small, element in the master plan of what has been described as the greenest new deal on the planet.

Since the start of the financial crisis last year, governments across the globe have been talking up the environmental content of their fiscal stimulus programs and being judged by their efforts to save the planet. U.S. President Barack Obama and the Chinese government have been praised for their ambitious plans to invest in renewable power, clean transport and energy-efficient buildings. Britain, by contrast, has been castigated for the relatively miserly sums it has so far committed to green projects. Alistair Darling's budget tomorrow will be closely scrutinized from the same perspective.