Earth Summit

AS THE June United Nations Conference on Environment and Development approaches, an historic opportunity is being lost.Negotiators for 170 countries reconvene in New York on April 30 to complete a UN agreement on the environment to be signed in Rio de Janeiro. A major difficulty confronts them: the Bush administration's repeated refusal to set a target for reducing U.S. carbon emissions. As Sen. Albert Gore, who leads the U.S. Senate delegation to these negotiations, points out, such intransigence jeopardizes the entire agreement.

In Michigan, scientists have discovered a 10,000-year-old fungus, weighing as much as a whale, 30 acres large, hidden under the ground, with only pretty, little mushrooms poking above the surface.In New York, at the United Nations, another huge, old and hidden fungus has been vegetating, but the mushrooms are threatening to sprout bigger and uglier. Preparations have been going on for two years for ''The Earth Summit,'' a spectacular U.N. conference scheduled for Rio de Janeiro in June.A domestic political fight about it is already under way. Environmentalists want President Bush to attend the Earth Summit gala and announce that it's a grand idea.

ANNAPOLIS -- The organizer of the forthcoming "Earth summit" in Brazil urged the Bush administration yesterday to recognize that the meeting represents an opportunity, not a threat, for the U.S. economy.Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, said U.S. representatives participating in negotiations leading up to the summit have been "tough-minded" about certain key issues, such as global warming.But he expressed confidence that the United States and other nations of the world still have time to come to terms on disputes over warming, deforestation and providing economic aid to poor countries.

Cities of the world are telegraphing a strong message to organizers of ''Earth Summit,'' the United Nations' big Conference on the Environment and Development to be held next June in Rio de Janeiro.Cities want the 166 national delegations to Rio, many led by presidents and prime ministers, to recognize that without healthy cities, the entire globe may get very sick. They want cities high on the conference agenda, up there with global warming, deforestation, desertification, the loss of animal and plant species.

A U.S. report drafted for next year's "Earth Summit" in Brazil is drawing criticism from environmentalists, who contend that the Bush administration has glossed over the ecological harm caused by this country's economic growth in the past two decades."