Paul Watson, 57, is the man Japanese whalers, Canadian seal hunters and illegal fishermen everywhere fear the most.

Yet it is the strict dictionary definition of the word that suits him best: a person of independent or unorthodox views. The proximity to Liverpool Street makes New Street Grill a popular choice already, before you throw in the slick interiors and sophisticated modern British cooking. If you then give it batteries that can be recharged by connecting a plug to an electric power source and have a good economic model to pay for the batteries, then you at least double efficiency again. It has helped hundreds of communities across India - and now in seven other countries - install water supplies and solar voltaic lighting systems, develop bicycles that can cross rivers and design buildings that collect every drop of water. The speed at which Germany under Merkel is pursuing climate change policies is embarrassing the UK and other countries, which talk up the need for action, but deliver little.Appointed Iran's first woman vice-president by President Khatami in 1997, Massoumeh Ebtekar, 47, later became an inspired environment minister. Next up, says Tesla, is a mass-market family sedan that could be fuelled by solar panels on the garage roof.

Venter is not giving up his human genomics work, but says that he is now drawn to environmental problems by their urgency - and by the rapidity with which he thinks he can find solutions.Last year 1,500 companies were raided and one million cubic metres of illegally felled timber were confiscated. No one can doubt the persuasive powers of Wangari Maathai, Nobel peace prize-winner and 67-year-old former assistant minister of the environment in Kenya. Erratic rains and longer droughts are becoming more frequent around the world with changing weather patterns and climate change, and the lessons taught by Singh in Rajastan are now being applied all over India and Africa. Anyone generating electricity from renewables now gets a guaranteed payment of up to three to four times the market rate, guaranteed for 20 years. Its advantage is that it is far simpler and fairer than the Kyoto agreement, which applied only to a few rich countries," Meyer says.