You may have decided to walk to the supermarket this week to save fuel and benefit from some exercise. But have you thought about where your food comes from? Take a look at the countries of origin in your fruit bowl or your freezer.

It is not just your own travelling that causes climate change from greenhouse gases. Your food is being flown around the world. Airfreight has a far greater impact on the environment than sea or road travel. A longer distance travelled by ship is not as damaging as lots of shorter trips by heavy good vehicles.

Out-of-season fruit is flown in from warmer climates to satisfy our desire for permanent dietary summertime. We should be eating more locally grown oranges (who can resist the delicious sweet variety lumilaring?) and less imported ones to help reduce greenhouse emissions. Freshly picked fruit and vegetables are better nutritionally, as well as having more taste. We are so lucky to be able to slip into the pot a vegetable that was still growing in the field less than a day ago, sometimes only a few hours old.

Food miles

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in UK has been looking at food miles as an indicator of sustainability. The distance a food travels between field and plate is measured in food miles.

These days, food travels further partly due to centralised systems of supermarkets which have taken over from local and regional markets. A pint of milk or a crop of potatoes can be transported many miles to be packaged at a central depot and then sent many miles back to be sold near where they were produced in the first place.

Across Europe, the numbers of animals being hauled around have grown with the trend for large, centralised abattoirs and meat-processing plants. Animals are also exported and imported to and from other countries. All the more reason to choose local pork, chicken, rabbit or beef.

Another reason for mounting food miles is comparative labour costs. Britain sends fish all the way to China, where labour costs are much lower, for processing, then flies it back to the UK to be sold. In the case of processed ingredients, these may travel around from factory to factory before they make their way to the shops.

The UK government is planning to reduce the environmental and social costs of food transport in the UK by 20 per cent by 2012. A recent DEFRA report estimated costs of food miles at over €13 billion each year, half of which is put down to road congestion.

Calculating the impact of imported food against growing it locally gives some interesting results. For example, the DEFRA report shows that it is less environment-friendly to grow British tomatoes than it is for Britain to import tomatoes from the Mediter-ranean. The energy needed to heat the glasshouses for growing tomatoes in Britain is significantly more than the energy used in transporting tomatoes from warmer countries, where no heating is used because of the warmer climate.

Organic farming cuts down on the fossil fuels required to manufacture and transport the chemicals used in mainstream agriculture. This is an aspect of the environmental cost of food that tends to be overlooked.

ADZ-Green youths are conducting a campaign intended to encourage people to consider the impact their shopping habits have on the environment.

Planning for future climate

As we sit reading the Sunday newspapers, the world is gathering. Eight thousand delegates have descended on the United Nations conference on climate change in Montreal to save us from ourselves. The threat of global warming has been compared to that of weapons of mass destruction. Kyoto Protocol targets on reducing greenhouse emissions to the atmosphere, which came into effect this year, will expire in 2012.

The two-week long Montreal talks will look at setting new targets. It is hoped that the world will accept a cap on carbon emissions which will drive innovation and lead to an economy based on greener production.

The overwhelming majority of scientists are in agreement about three things: 1) the world has been warming and will continue to warm for the foreseeable future 2) the warming is largely due to human activity - burning fossil fuel such as oil, coal and gas - and destroying forests and 3) the consequences of rising temperature in all projected futures are grave enough to warrant global action.

The sustainability of our planet now depends on governments, industries and individuals around the world working together. In the not so long run sustainability means our very survival. Tomorrow the World Health Organisation will launch three reports on the health impacts of climate change. These include adaption strategies for human health, predicting infectious disease epidemics using climate and health sector measures for small island states.

When most people hear the range of predicted temperature increases they often don't realise that this is a global average. Small changes in the global temperature average can bring about huge effects. The last ice age, for example, was only, on average, about 5°C cooler than today. If such a small amount of cooling could result in such drastic effects, what could happen with a much more rapid shift in temperature?

The water cycle is expected to be drastically altered with increased temperatures, increasing the number and severity of both droughts and floods. Higher temperatures increase the rates of evaporation from the surface. When conditions momentarily shift, the massive amounts of water now held in the atmosphere flow down in torrential quantities. Global increases in temperature are also likely to increase ozone layer depletion, allowing more plant-damaging UV rays through the Earth's shield.

Other impacts of temperature increases include the possibility of more insect infestations, because larvae will better survive through winters, and an increase in their frequency.

Governments first agreed to save the climate at the Brazil Earth Summit in 1992. Five years after the Earth Summit, governments made a pact in Kyoto: 156 nations promised they would put the protocol into action and ratified it. Seven years later, the United States and Australia pulled out. Richer countries are considered to be mostly to blame for greenhouse gas emissions and some of these have managed to lower their emissions.

Greenpeace activists showed their displeasure of the British premier's view of nuclear power as a way to improve the security of the UK's energy supply and meet Britain's greenhouse gas targets. While business chiefs want a quick decision, Green groups say there are cleaner and safer alternatives to fossil fuels.

"Renewable energy sources, such as wind, wave and solar power are clean, cheap and safe. They do not rely on massive subsidy from the taxpayer, or a scarce and finite supply of high grade uranium. Nor will they do irreparable harm to our world and our health," said Keith Taylor of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Mott MacDonald, designers of the marina in Dubai and Hong Kong air terminal, were commissioned by the Malta Resources Authority to draw up a policy on renewable sources of energy. The report has been ready for seven months but no details have been released.

The brief was to provide a range of strategic options for renewable electricity generation to help the government meet a target percentage of national power demand yet to be determined.

The most appropriate mixture of renewable generation types, including wind and solar is to be identified while taking into account considerations such as planning and physical, legal and economic constraints.

Last year Mott MacDonald won a contract for the development of a €68 million sludge incinerator in St Petersburg, Russia. This was financed principally by loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Nordiska Investeringensbanken.

At a conference on renewables in Rome last month, a Mott MacDonald consultanat placed land-based wind farms over conventional power stations as a more cost effective way to produce energy.

The next public hearing may be for a biomass power plant at Ghallis where, as in the case of the north west Malta sewage treatment plant, the tender may have already been issued by the time MEPA gets around to consulting the public. If they are going to burn sewage sludge at Ghallis the sewage treatment plant should have been located there too.

Energy-saving tips

Even small changes downstream can result in big reductions upstream so every individual action counts. Do not leave your phone on charge for longer than necessary and switch off mobile phone chargers when not in use. Buy a timer switch for your hot water heater if you cannot replace it with a solar water heater. Set an alarm so you switch the TV off before falling asleep on the sofa. Kill your speed - driving at 80 kph rather than at 70 kph uses more fuel.

Climate-changing gases

Greenhouse gases trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. The main one is carbon dioxide, most of which comes from burning fossil fuel. The protocol also covers methane, much of which comes from agriculture, and nitrous oxide, mostly from fertiliser use. Three industrial gases are also included.

Trading in emissions

Since the beginning of this year Malta's two power stations have been allocated a carbon dioxide quota by the EU. If Marsa and Delimara power plants generate less than 6 million tonnes between 2005 and 2007 they can sell the allowance. If they generate more we have to buy extra allowances (emissions trading certificates) or pay a penalty.

razammit@hotmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.