The official declaration of the Group of Twenty summit of major economies, which concluded Sunday in Toronto, directly mentions the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and calls for greater levels of cooperation and sharing of best practices to prevent similar accidents in the future.

Under the "Other issues and Forward Agenda" section of the G-20 Toronto Summit Declaration, the document reads:

"Following the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico we recognize the need to share best practices to protect the marine environment, prevent accidents related to offshore exploration and development, as well as transportation, and deal with their consequences."

Although no specific actions were taken by the G-20 in terms of the oil spill, the fact that the massive, ongoing oil leak was even approached at the meetings--let alone given attention to in the final document--says something about the spill's global significance.

In other energy developments at the Toronto Summit, G-20 leaders did not agree on a plan to end fossil fuel subsidies, but they did "note with appreciation the report on energy subsidies [from the IEA, OPEC, OECD and World Bank]." In so doing, they explicitly gave support to development of a strategy for ending such subsidies without doing significant harm to developing economies.

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