Efforts to promote sustainable development must tap into technologies developed locally, driven by community needs and priorities.

A meeting in London this week will show whether science can not only diagnose our environmental crisis but also provide effective solutions.

Yet more failure to make much progress on climate change in Durban means that developing countries must exert stronger political pressure.

The modest achievements of last week's climate talks in Mexico must not create a false sense of complacency.

Policymakers need better information about the regional impact of climate change on water supplies, and on ways of adapting to it.

Clean technology to meet poor communities' needs must lie at the heart of any sustainable strategy to combat climate change.

The climate change debate offers a way to integrate forest management into development policy, but strategies must be informed by good science.

This week's G20 summit in London must ensure that any solution to the global financial crisis also commits to sustainable economic growth.

More efforts are needed to hold the leaders of the G8 nations to commitments made at their annual summit meetings.

Effective adaptation strategies will require reliable scientific data both on the nature of climate change and on its potential impact.

The row over the World Bank president's behaviour reinforces the need to safeguard its lending policies from ideological pressure.

The interest in Brazil's ethanol programme should be used to set up fairer partnerships between developing and developed countries.

Whether human activity should share any blame for the storms currently sweeping the Caribbean remains uncertain. What is not in doubt is that such activity has contributed significantly to the resulting devastation.