When the leaders of the G20 countries gather in Washington this weekend for a special summit on the global financial crisis, pressure will be on to seek solutions in the growth of a new green economy.

Today in Washington, Gary Gardner and Michael Renner, senior researchers with the environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute, issued a detailed proposal that they hope will focus the attention of the G20 leaders on what they are calling a "Global Green Deal."

"The challenge for global political leadership, including U.S. President-elect [Barack] Obama, is not merely to kickstart the global economy, but to do so in a way that creates jobs and stabilizes climate, increases food output using less water and pesticides, and generates prosperity with greater equality of incomes," write Gardner and Renner.

"This broad approach will require a conceptual blueprint evocative of America's 1930s New Deal, but more audacious in scope and vision," they write.

"This historic moment calls for not merely repairs to our hyper-productive, yet ailing, economy, but for a new approach suited to the realities of a heavily populated and environmentally stressed world - a Global Green Deal that shifts the focus from growth to development, and that is geared less to providing consumerist superfluities than to ensuring that nobody's true needs go unmet."

President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden today announced that they will not meet personally with G20 leaders. They have designated former Republican Congressman Jim Leach and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to meet unofficially with delegations at the G-20 summit on their behalf.

Obama Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Denis McDonough said, "This weekend's summit is an important opportunity to hear from the leaders of many of the world's largest economies. President [George W.] Bush should be commended for calling the summit. There is one president at a time in the United States, so the president-elect has asked Secretary Albright and Congressman Leach, an experienced and bipartisan team, to be available meet with and listen to our friends and allies on his behalf."

The G20 is a group of 20 economies - 19 of the world's largest national economies, plus the European Union. They are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, European Union.

Together, the G20 economies make up 90 percent of global gross national product, 80 percent of world trade and two-thirds of the world's population. This will be the first G20 meeting at the leaders level since the G20 was established in 1999.