The most important thing that came out of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm is the declaration of intent from countries like the United States. There is also the invitation that was extended to countries like China, India and the other major emitters to participate in a binding process that would tie in with the one being undertaken by the United Nations. So the difference is in the presence of countries that are not already signatories of the Kyoto Protocol.
The significance of what happened in Heiligendamm is that for the first time you have the agreement of the United States, first of all, in an agreement that includes the United States, the EU, Japan, Canada, and Russia in a single accord, speaking the same language, and the willingness, as I've said, of the United States to say they are willing to adopt real targets for climate change and that they want to do it by following a process that involves the major emitters.
You also have the engagement of the G8 with the key major emitters. If you look at the G8 plus what they call the Outreach Five, the other five countries that were invited--China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico--that accounts for over 70% of greenhouse emissions, so it's a pretty important group of countries to be engaging. You have a process with the G8 leaders meeting with those countries and saying they need to work together with a view to bringing the major emitters together, agreeing on a framework for greenhouse gas reductions, and having this feed into the process that will begin in Bali in December of this year.
Experience teaches us that it would be very difficult to predict success for a process like that--we've been there before--if we don't have some indication that we can bring the major emitters on board. What the G8 leaders are saying is that they have, very usefully, a guide as they try to set a wider objective, and that they should look at what the Europeans, the Japanese, and Canada have done as a guide to what they might collectively aspire to.
Does that mean we declare victory and that all the work is done? Not at all. A great deal of hard work remains. There will be hard work in terms of the engagement of the Outreach Five. There will be hard work to do on the ground in Bali, but we have turned a corner and we're much further ahead than we were pre-Heiligendamm.