There’s a world of difference between a “Green Budget” and a “Budget for Sustainability”.

On the “green front”, it could have been a lot worse, but it could have been better too. Not exactly the mega-recovery package that has been called for but not insignificant either: £525 million for offshore wind; £435 million for additional energy efficiency measures; £405 million for green technologies; encouragement for CHP; and new support for carbon capture and storage – with more details on this coming from Ed Miliband today. And all of that backed up by the new Carbon Budget – with a target of a 34% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020.

The papers today have good coverage of this. On the broader sustainability front, however, there’s been much less coverage. But both the new 50p rate of income tax and the projected levels of debt have highly significant sustainability implications.

Fairer taxes (I would argue) are a critical part of any sustainable economy. All the evidence shows that more equitable societies (i.e. with lower levels of income disparities) are more contented societies. The data on this has been compellingly brought together in a new book called “The Spirit Level”, which makes the case that almost all the worst socio-economic problems in society today can be traced back to chronic poverty. So, being very obvious about it, better-off people should pay higher taxes – and that’s as much a part of a sustainable society as very low carbon.

On the debt front, the bottom line couldn’t be clearer. We have indeed been living way beyond our means; levels of public debts are going to have to rise dramatically to bail us out of that mess; it will take many, many years before our public finances are back in balance – and the pain of that will be spread over the next generation of tax payers as well as this one.

Not good from the perspective of intergenerational justice that lies at the heart of the concept of sustainable development.