The Co-op Insurance Society has today released a report suggesting that Biofuels could have a damaging effect on the environment.

Biofuels are anything made from vegetable matter that burns, and are seen as a potential solution to climate change because they can reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The EU has even said they want 10% of all fuel in cars to come from biofuels by the year 2010.

One of the British Governments senior advisors, Professor Dieter Helm, said "The sort of targets being set for biofuels will have quite radical effects on agriculture and therefore will have very substantial consequences for food prices and agriculture more generally."

The report says that around nine per cent of the world's agricultural land may be needed to replace just 10% of the world's transport fuels.

This means the production of biofuels could lead to a decrease in land available for food production in countries where famine already exists.

"People are felling rainforests to plant crops to grow energy fuels, biofuels," Professor Helm said.

"Think of the energy involved in felling those rainforests. Think about the damage to the climate being done by the loss of those trees. Think about the ploughing and the cultivation of fields."

"Think about the transport of those fuels, and you start to realise the carbon imprints are about much more than simply what happens to grow in a particular field at a particular point in time."

This just goes to show that we need to seriously consider the environmental impact of everything we do - even if we think we are helping the environment by doing it.