Hot Air at The Earth Summit?

Over the next few months, delicate negotiations will determine whether the world's largest environmental meeting will produce real progress in saving the planet from man-made ruin. Or whether the session will merely add to global warming with hot-air emissions from about 100,000 parliamentarians, religious leaders, environmentalists and heads of state.

The occasion is the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, to be held in Rio de Janeiro next June. For two years, international committees have been hashing out a declaration of principles for the so-called Earth Summit. The bureaucrats have also been negotiating an ecologically sound agenda for the 21st...