A plan to build the largest and most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world is being discussed in London.Financiers and African politicians will look at how to finance the $80bn (£40bn) cost of the Grand Inga project. The plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo would generate twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges dam.
Chapter 1: overview: tomorrow's crises today city of darkness/ city of light
Chapter 2: DELHI i: drinking the city dry water insecurity
Chapter 3: LAGOS: crisis of management governance and planning
Chapter 4: DHAKA: reaping the whirlwind vulnerability to natural disasters
Chapter 5: ADDIS: putting food on the table food insecurity
Chapter 6: RIO: fighting for the favelas human insecurity
Chapter 7: JAKARTA: battling to breathe pollution control
Chapter 8: CAIRO: sheltering the urban poor The housing crisis
Chapter 9: EL ALTO: labouring to survive employment insecurity
Chapter 10: LUANDA: living in the Hot Zone health and sanitation
Chapter 11: ULAANBATAR: painful transitions cultural change
The Happy Planet Index is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered.
It is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live long and happy lives.
Sixty countries backed by the World Bank and most UN bodies yesterday called for radical changes in world farming to avert increasing regional food shortages, escalating prices and growing environmental problems.
Bio-energy The report says biofuels compete for land and water with food crops and are inefficient. They can cause deforestation and damage soils and water.
Biotechnology The use of GM crops, where the technology is not contained, is contentious, the UN says. Data on some crops indicate highly variable yield gains in some places and declines in others.
Climate change While modest temperature rises may increase food yields in some areas, a general warming risks damaging all regions of the globe. There will be serious potential for conflict over habitable land.
Trade and markets
Subsidies distort the use of resources and benefit industrialised nations at the expense of developing countries.