Last month marked the second anniversary of the June 1992 Rio de Janeiro "Earth Summit," the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. Indeed, environment and development were supposed to be the twin goals of UNCED—this bizarre bazaar, which was attended by some 20,000 delegates and assorted hangers-on and supposedly ushered in a new global consciousness.

There is only one thing wrong here. Before we start celebrating, we'd better note that the twin goals are in conflict with each other. Development requires massive expenditures of energy for infrastructure— electric powerplants, hydroelectric dams, highway, airports, railroads, communications systems, facilities for extracting mineral resources, including coal mines and oil wells, and, of course, all kinds of manufac- turing plants to supply the tremendous need for consumer goods, not to mention massive building projects for housing.

Such projects are usually measured in mega-dollars, but when looked at closely many of these dollars are used for energy resources. Indeed, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that global emissions of carbon dioxide will rise by 50 percent by 2010, emissions by the Third World would more than double, rising by 116 percent, with nearly half the increase coming from India and China.

Carbon dioxide, as is well known, is added to the atmosphere mainly by the burning of fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas. Higher efficiencies in creating energy and practicing more energy conservation are laudable goals; they can save money but they only reduce the rate of growth of CO2 by modest amounts. Mitigating the increase of atmospheric CO2 by planting more trees is a Band-Aid solution to the problem and likely to be offset by the continued destruction of tropical forests.

Contrast this scenario with UNCED's environmental center piece: the Global Climate Treaty. Adopted at the Earth Summit, it has now been ratified by more than 50 nations; its provisions, therefore, become binding on the signatories. The utopian aim of the proponents of the treaty was to reduce the con- centration of greenhouse gases to its pre-industrial level—a completely unrealistic goal. Even stabilizing the concentration of carbon dioxide at present levels requires that emissions be cut—worldwide—by between 60 percent and 80 percent, with a commensurate reduction in energy use.

The more modest, short-term goal of the treaty is to keep emissions in the year 2000 at the 1990 level. But even this target will be unachievable in the developed countries without great pain, high costs, and much coercion. For the developing countries, such a goal is equivalent to consigning them to continued poverty— the antithesis of development.

It is remarkable that delegates to the summit finessed this obvious conflict between increased development and decreased energy use. They substituted instead much meaningless language and, of course, new inter- national bodies that will continue to meet in endless rounds of conferences at fashionable places.

It's no surprise then that the policies of the North are regarded with deep suspicion by the developing countries—as a new form of imperialism based on ecology, aptly labeled "eco-imperialism." An article in India's The Pioneer, Dec. 20, 1991, titled "India and the Earth Summit: What's at Stake in Rio,” strips away phony ecological excuses. The author argues with refreshing candor that India must ensure that the issue of poverty and environmental degradation—presumably local water and air pollution—leads the agenda at UNCED, rather than ozone layer depletion, climate change and conservation of biodiversity that the industrialized countries are aiming for.

There are solutions to the development-environment dilemma. In principle, we could move to a massive use of nuclear energy, which does not release greenhouse gases. But popular opposition makes this approach unlikely. Renewable energy sources—based on biomass or direct solar energy—are still a long way from being cost-competitive for large-scale energy production. So what's left?

Fortunately, matters can, and hopefully will, resolve themselves without much economic damage— unless governments decide to restrict energy use by command-control methods. Forthcoming climate data, I am convinced, will make it quite apparent in a decade or so that the much feared global warming catastrophe is really a "phantom risk" produced by reliance on the predictions of imperfect mathematical models. Once this is generally recognized and the warming scare abates, energy use win expand as needed and raise the living standards of much of the world's population. With this higher standard of living, and the greater opportunities offered to women, will come lower birthrates approaching those of the present industrialized nations. We can then have sustainable populations—albeit at a higher level than the present one—and sustainable development.