A new group of innovative non-governmental organisations are springing up in the wake of disasters around the world, driven by complex data analysis and backed by telecom brands

Signing up refugees via mobile phone, Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya

When a massive earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, the United Nations found that data collected through mobile telephones was crucial to delivering its relief programmes in the region.

Sustainability has not only become a science in the past 25 years, but it is one that continues to be fast-growing with widespread international collaboration, broad disciplinary composition and wide geographic distribution, according to new research from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Indiana University.

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has jumped by a record amount, according to the US department of energy, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, the co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The threat posed to crop production by plant pests and diseases is one the key factors that could lead to "a perfect storm" that threatens to destabilise global food security.

Already, the biological threat accounts for about a 40% loss in global production and the problem is forecast to get worse, scientists warn.

BBC News has asked Dr Matthew Cock, chief scientist for Cabi, a UK-based agri-environment research organisation, to compile a list of the worst plant pests threatening crops around the world.

A rise in the use of "ozone-friendly" HFCs has prompted experts to voice concerns that the potent greenhouse gases could be a problem in the future.

A UN report says that HFCs, many more times potent than CO2, could account for up to 20% of emissions and hamper efforts to curb climate change.

They are widely used in fridges and air conditioning, replacing CFCs and HCFCs that damage the Earth's ozone layer.

The findings were presented during a meeting on protecting the ozone layer.