The human rights of the world’s poorest people will be violated unless developed countries accept the need for drastic and immediate steps to prevent global warming from triggering dangerous climate change, the United Nations warned recently. Calling for urgent action on a post-Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gases, the UN said the risks of "ecological catastrophe" were increasing.

Hanno Renn, a Freiburg taxi driver, invested in a communal solar electricity system on a building in the German town in 1993. "Everyone laughed and said I was wasting my money," he says. But now he has paid off his investment and earns a regular income from the electrical company for the power he generates. "I have had the last laugh," he grins.

Globalisation has reduced the bargaining power of unskilled workers and pushed up inequality in many Western countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said this week, urging governments to improve their social safety nets. The Paris-based rich nations club said in its annual Employment Outlook that the prospect of offshoring was likely to have increased the vulnerability of jobs.

A so-called "vulture" fund has been given permission by a British court to enforce a claim for tens of millions of dollars theoretically owed by Zambia. The decision was immediately slammed by campaign groups who demanded that governments of rich countries moved to stop such funds reclaiming debt from poor countries that had supposedly already had their debts written off.

The British and Kenyan governments weighed into the growing debate over "food miles" this week, insisting it was ethically and environmentally sound to buy flowers from Kenya on Valentine’s Day. There is increasing concern at the amount of carbon emitted by the fleets of aircraft that carry millions of flowers to Europe every day from the East African nation.