On your marks ... get set ... consult. Picture: Jim Vecchi/Corbis
Let's quickly revisit the Stern report shall we? Commissioned by Gordon Brown to investigate climate change, the main conclusion drawn by Nicholas Stern was this: "There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now."
Does this budget count as strong action? I'm just not convinced.
There was lots of messing around at the edges; lots of cosmetic policies which sounded good; but the butch approaches, such as a rise in fuel duty, were delayed.
There are interesting things in there: the Environmental Transformation Fund has £400m to invest in projects such as marine renewables, low-carbon technologies, offshore wind - but that was already the case before this budget came along. More worrying is the Energy Technologies Institute, described as "a 50:50 partnership between Government and industry; its current membership of BP, Caterpillar, EDF Energy, E.On UK, Rolls-Royce and Shell [what a line-up! How many boycotts have this lot got between them?] aims to raise up to £1.1bn over 10 years for transformational research and development in low-carbon energy technologies". Hmm, public-private finance projects have always worked in the public interest before ... not.
There are some infuriating missed opportunities. The government is targeting fuel poverty, for example, by handing out more money to poor families. Why not help them insulate their homes properly?
They're planning all sorts of work on our transport infrastructure - and all of it will be focused on our airports and our roads. That's just not good enough, in any way.
But the main thing this budget seems to specialise in, greenwise, are consultations. There are simply dozens of them about to begin - always a good way to spend green money - so you'd better get your pens ready to answer questions about renewable energy, feed-in tariffs, low carbon cars ... But don't we already know the answers here? Yes, yes, yes, surely?
Is this "strong action now"? It's a start. But I'd quite like to stop starting, and get on with it.
