The opening of the 2007 UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session was preceded by numerous meetings and reports related to its agenda topics, providing testament to the timeliness of its agenda – energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution and the atmosphere, and climate change. The confluence of related activities in the last month emphasizes the importance of these issues. The decision to include them on its 2006-2007 agenda was taken at CSD-11 in 2003; negotiators knew they were key issues for the CSD to address sooner rather than later, but they wanted to first test the two-year implementation cycle process with the “less difficult” issues of water, sanitation and human settlements. The numerous activities are also the result of related discussions in other bodies, particularly the 2007 process in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to adopt its Fourth Assessment Report and efforts related to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to implement its agreements and develop a plan for action after the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends. Coinciding interests of key actors, such as Germany’s use of its overlapping Presidencies of the EU and the G8 to promote discussions on energy efficiency, also contributed to the recent slate of energy-related events. The CSD’s ability to focus international attention on key sustainable development issues also deserves some credit for the many energy-related recent meeting, media and report stories included in this issue of Linkages Update. Whatever the reason for the events, we are pleased to bring you our reports of the international community’s responses to these critical issues.