Negotiators met behind guarded doors late tonight, trying to reach a consensus on a global warming treaty before their meeting breaks up on Saturday.

Mr. Hagel has his critics - particularly environmentalists who oppose his position on the global warming treaty.

American support is "the linchpin to a successful global warming treaty," Mr. Meyer said.

One concerns the global warming treaty.

But the site cautions that "if the President signs a global warming treaty, you'll need the cash to pay the new energy tax."

Several members of Congress and environmental groups, while welcoming the President's commitment to a global warming treaty, said he had acted because of political pressure.

Such negotiating tactics exasperated delegates who worried that there would not be enough time to write a final global warming treaty by June 1992.

True to his word, he said later in front of Mr. Schröder that the global warming treaty "makes no economic sense."

He was probably right not to be bulldozed into signing a costly global warming treaty based on incomplete science.

Ratification of a global warming treaty will require abandonment of the dedication to "green" infallibility.