U.S. Is (Again) Going It Alone In Pushing Kyoto Alternative.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(PERSPECTIVE)

Byline: TOM GRAY

Greens see red when they hear a word like "voluntary." Command-and-control is environmental movement orthodoxy, so any policy that relies on less obtrusive methods such as markets and technology isn't taken seriously. If it's not mandatory, it's considered meaningless.

So the reception for President Bush's global warming plan -- his long-awaited answer to the Kyoto Accord, which relies on voluntary measures -- was no surprise.

Some on the right worried that Bush was taking global warming way too seriously and raising the risk that today's voluntary goals will become mandatory tomorrow.

But the main theme, from the leading green groups and environment ministers of the world, was that of dismissal with varying degrees of politeness.

At one end of the civility spectrum, Friends of the Earth's climate-change coordinator Kate Hampton called it a "climate con."

At the other, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said his country welcomes Bush's "positive proposal on the global environment issue" and said, "We'll expect greater efforts in that respect."