No To Kyoto.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Environment: As the U.N. meets once again to hammer out details of a global warming deal, the U.S. has once more rejected the plan out of hand. Smart move.

Not that we have anything against a cleaner environment. It's just that much of the science that undergirds the U.N.'s so-called Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming is bad science that doesn't stand up to even basic scrutiny.

The Kyoto deal, hammered out in 1997 and rejected by President Bush back in 2001, asks for massive economic sacrifice, especially by the U.S., for very little -- if any -- gain. Yet the 180 nations or so now meeting in Italy seem incapable of recognizing the uncertainty of the deal's science -- or the enormous costs of Kyoto's mandates.

That's why U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky was right Monday to deride the Kyoto deal as "an unrealistic and ever-tightening regulatory straitjacket."

And why both Russia and Japan -- key nations that, along with the U.S., will have to sign on to make any deal work -- are also having second thoughts.

The Kyoto Accord sounds simple enough. It requires major nations to cut greenhouse gases by 5% from their 1990 levels by 2012. But it would force the U.S. to make the biggest sacrifices, while fast-growing, up-and-coming nations like China would get a free ride.