Despite different evolutionary paths, development education and environmental education are increasingly finding a common focus in addressing climate change issues. Realising the synergies this offers requires both sets of practitioners to grasp the essential underpinnings of climate science, policy and ethics. This paper presents the principal authoritative sources that development educators should be guided by. Achieving a successful partnership will involve reconsideration of concepts of development as well as of relationships between the developed and developing worlds. The urgency of achieving radical changes in approach is stressed as the time scale for effective global and national actions to tackle climate change diminishes and crucial decisions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change become imminent.