The news that Malta registered the second highest increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the EU (June 4) comes as no surprise when one considers that importation of cars to Malta continues unabated at a rate near to 1,000 per month.

This is, of course, a reflection of our affluence and there is no reason why people should not own a car if they can afford it. The big problem is that people simply use their car too much. This is partly linked to Mediterranean laziness but we will remain oil-addicted as long as we have limited transport choices. In addition to our inadequate public transport, there is little else to encourage healthy mobility choices. Unfortunately a cult of car dependency continues to be encouraged by antiquated attitudes and misguided traffic policies. Thus, while the trend is to decrease urban motorised traffic in other countries, Malta stubbornly continues catering only for motor transport and ignoring all else.

Roads in new residential areas continue to be built to accommodate motor traffic only; they are consequently pedestrian-unfriendly and so discourage walking. The bicycle continues to be regarded as something perverse and unnatural both by motorists at large and by our transport authority, so nothing will be done about providing bicycle amenities or taking steps to make cycling safe. This means that people rely on their car because there is no incentive to induce them to walk and they are too scared to use a bicycle for short journeys or shopping errands.

The irony is that Malta recently became a signatory to the Parma Declaration on Environment and Health, thereby pledging herself to "provide each child by 2020 with access to healthy and safe environments and settings of daily life in which they can walk and cycle to kindergartens and schools, and to green spaces in which to play and undertake physical activity". This will remain a forlorn hope.

Meanwhile, our reformed public transport will land us with the same old smelly diesel travelling experience. There was talk at some point of trams. Fair enough, except that these would have been an unaffordable extravagance. This transport option has now been radically downgraded to second-hand ("less than 15 years old") diesel buses which will not be up to current EU emission standards. Such environmentally outdated buses will soon show signs of age and start spewing black smoke again - just like the good old days. This is not exactly the stuff of Vision 2015.

Water taxis have been mooted but these will probably not be used much. On the other hand, since 20 per cent of Malta's population lives in the harbour area, the potential for a comprehensive harbour transport system must be substantial. Besides providing a pleasant form of public transport and constituting a tourism attraction, it would help to reduce the horrendous polluting traffic on the roads around the harbour area.

After decades of enduring our appalling public transport, people are fed up and want something new. Buying outdated diesel buses is another mistaken "forward to the past" policy so beloved of our politicians in the realm of energy and transport.

This lamentable lack of imagination and inability to seek appropriate solutions is frustrating. Our "new" second-hand buses will be about as sexy as grainy, flickering 1950s television and people will simply continue to shun public transport all over again. For instance, why were hybrid buses or, at least, trolley buses not considered? Trolley buses come much cheaper than trams; their cleanliness and ultra-silent, smooth and vibration-free ride would definitely attract passengers as they do in other countries.

For those who might like another way of looking at things, the forgoing is all dealt with in great detail in Parts II and III of the Think Tank report Towards a Low Carbon Society - the Nation's Health, Energy Security and Fossil Fuels available in digital form on www. tppi.org.mt/cms/index. php/reports.

Unless there is a radical change in attitude and less retrograde thinking in defining transport policies, healthy mobility choices such as using public transport, walking or cycling will continue to be the exception and, along with our heavy pollution, Malta's emissions from transport (and from electricity generation) will continue to spiral upwards.