Clean energy companies, which had been flying high on the back of soaring oil prices, tumbled to earth in the last few months of 2008. The boom in renewable and low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels looked by November to have suffered a sudden bust.

The WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index, which tracks the performance of 88 clean energy stocks worldwide, plunged almost 70 per cent between the start of the year and November, with 84 out of the 88 companies seeing their share price fall. This was in sharp contrast to the previous year, when the index rose 58 per cent.