The Wall Street Journal

"In one country in this region, Zimbabwe, the lack of respect for human rights and rule of law has [helped] push millions of people toward the brink of starvation." Boooooo!

"In the face of famine, several governments in Southern Africa have prevented critical U.S. food assistance from being distributed to the hungry by rejecting biotech corn." Hisssssss!

The big story coming out of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg seems to be that Colin Powell was booed. This is being chalked up by some as one more global U.S. embarrassment, but the closer we inspect this event the more it looks like Colin Powell's finest hour. As the quotes above suggest, he was booed for telling the truth.

And contrary to predictions that the United States would be isolated at the conference, its outcome looks to be a remarkable American success. A delegation led by Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky negotiated a document that even we could actually sign and that might do the world some good. As an added benefit, the spectacle further highlighted the moral bankruptcy of the anti-globalization left. A secretary of state who gets booed by the supporters of Zimbabwean thug Robert Mugabe and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez must be doing something right.

All the more so because the usual suspects -- including the European Commission and some EU member states -- had hoped to use the conference as a forum to bash America and the market economy. A number of Powell hecklers got their $1,000 plane tickets by way of EU travel grants for "non-governmental organizations." The first smart U.S. decision was to keep President Bush away, showing he'd learned from his father's embarrassment at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Then the U.S. delegation, with notable support from Australia, quietly bypassed the Europeans and worked out deals with developing countries, virtually all of whom have no interest in forgoing economic growth in order to assuage First World guilt. Ignored, for example, were European suggestions for targets on the amount of energy produced by "renewable" sources that even rich countries can't afford.

Instead the final document stresses the importance of "affordable" energy, as well as trade and honest governance as engines of economic growth -- themes the Bush administration raised at the U.N.'s Monterrey summit in March and in Doha last November. Where First World commitments were made, they are concrete and achievable, such as a 2015 target date for getting clean water and sanitation systems to at least half of the 2.4 billion people who now lack them. Contrast this with the airy ambition of such dreams as the Kyoto global warming pact, which have the effect of making greens feel good about themselves in the comfort of Hamburg but do nothing for poor Africans who die of malaria and cholera.

Small wonder the world's self-styled environmentalists were less than pleased. "We should never have such shameful summits again," said Richard Navarro of Friends of the Earth. "The reaction to Colin Powell's speech is a very accurate reflection of the anger of non-governmental organizations at the role played by the United States at this conference," said Remi Parmentier of Greenpeace.

So much for complaints about the "lack of U.S. leadership." What really upsets these folks is the fact that the United States was leading, only in a pro-growth, pro-trade direction they don't like. Clean water may not make great fodder for Greenpeace's alarmist fund-raising letters to aging liberals in Hollywood. But it will make a difference in the lives of millions of the world's poor. Colin Powell should hope he gets booed like this every year.

This editorial was published Friday in The Wall Street Journal.