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THE WALL STREET JOLRNAL. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1992 A14 Earth Summit Will Shackle the Planet, Not Save It By S. f'7tED SINGEa International meetings in New York this week are drafting a treaty for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on the Environ- ment and Development, scheduled to con- vene in Rio de Janeiro In June. This so- called Earth Summit is being promoted by environmental activist groups around the world and by certain political leaders. Un- troubled by lack of scientific support for catastrophic global warming, they aim to impose a system of global environmental regulations in the name of saving the planet. The White House has so far refused to be stampeded; but with elections upon us anything can happen. Why all this frantic activity leading up to the Earth Summit, which will bring some 40,000 participants. to Brazil, with travel costs soon to exceed half a billion dollars? We are dealing here with a curi- ous alliance of interest groups. Central planners and assorted utopians would like to place natural resources and even na- tional economies under international con- trols, preferably theirs. There are still many around who supported the failed Law of the Sea negotiations to set up an In- ternational regime for exploiting ocean minerals; they now see an opportunity to achieve their aim of global environmen- tal controls under U.N. bureauf;rats. To be sure, there are many who are sin- cerely concerned about the future of the planet; they are the "foot soldiers" of the environmental movement. The "generals; " however, seem more interested in salaries, personal power and perks. With budgets now surpassing $400 million a year collec- tively, the officers of these organizattons spend their time traveling from conference to conference, extorting funds from indus; try, and-with the help of the media- frightening the average American Into writing those $10 and $20 checks that form the bulk of their support. But UNCED covers more than just the environment. The "D" stands for "devel- opment," and to many In the Third World this means the New International Ecoa nomic Order-which they failed to achieve 20 years ago through the U.N. General As- sembly. Cynics then referred to the NIEO as a "scheme of transferrin mone fro the poor In t e rich count es to t e c In the r countries." r or e tocrats now view UNCEI~as [ tt ve ic e ta recons tute this sc eme un er t e lse o eco o. ey call for industrialized nations, wh ch cur- rently contribute most of the carbon diox- ide to the atmosphere, to impose a huge tax on all fuels, and then transfer the pro- ceeds through an internatlonal authority to less developed countries. According to De- partment of Energy calculations, Ameri- can consumers would end up paying twice as much for gasoline and electric power, a scheme guaranteed to stunt U.S. economic growth. But limiting growth has always been among the announced goals of radical environmentalists-even if the burden falls mainly on the poor. - We are seeing this struggle now on a small scale In the Northwest, where pro- tection of 250 northern spotted owls will re- sult in, by conservative estimates, the loss of 33,000 jobs. Another example Is the con- troversial weUands policy that permits the Envlronmental Protection Agency to re- move private land. from development- without compensatlbn-under the pretext that It has ecological value. Influential politicians support UNCED, Including such U.S. senators as AI Gore (D., Tenn.). Majority Leader George Mitchell has just published a book, "World on Fire," that endorses both the global warming scare and the controls on energy use that UNCED hopes to impose on the in- dustrialized countries. And It is the Senate that would ratify any international agree- ments resulting from UNCED. The U.S. is certain to play the key role in the outcome of UNCED. The White House, to its credit, has resisted the exam- ple of Germany, Australia and other na- tions. They have announced,specific tar- gets for not just capping but reducing car- bon dioxide emissions, by as much as 25% over the next decade or two, but have yet to detail their policies or the tremendous costs involved. Pressure is mounting on the U.S. to exercise "leadership" by abandoning its present position; the U.S. currently calls for limiting the full "basket" of greenhouse gases, rather than only carbon diox- ide, and avoids specific targets and tlmeta- bles. Until recently, the U.S. point man was John Sununu, then White House chief of staff. As a scientist and engineer, he un- derstood that the scientific climate data do not support the catastrophic warmingtheo- rfes. Sam Skinner, the new chief of staff, will have to resolve the differences between alarmists within EPA and others, includ- Ing Department of Energy officials and White House Science Adviser Allan Brom- ley, who have been urging a go-slow ap- proach until a sclentific.basis has been more firmly established. The key decision will focus on whether George Bush should attend the Earth Sum- mit-as the democratic presidential candi- dates are urging. His presence in Rio would put his prestige and that of the U.S. behind the rush to impose global controls on energy use that will have a calamitous impact on jobs, technological progress, and standards of 1Pving. Mr. Singer, professor of atmospheric physics at the University of Virginia, di- rects the Science and Environmental Pol- icy Project in Washington. 41