I'm going to avoid dwelling on the big issues of the moment Copenhagen or China's promises to limit carbon emissions per unit of output in favour of a small but satisfying example of the kind of creative thinking and problem solving the drive for energy efficiency keeps throwing up.

The Spanish government's efforts to promote the use of electric cars have been limited by the expense of installing recharging points in convenient places in the major cities. Then somebody pointed out the potential of the hundreds of telephone boxes, left near redundant by the growth of mobile telephon, sitting accessibly at the kerbside with a ready electricty supply. They are only converting 30 boxes on a trail basis initially in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, but it's a scheme you could imagine working and saving them a fortune on power poles or whatever other charging facilities they had in mind. And if it does, it should be replicable in other European countries.