Voluntary co-operation will not work for proposals where the costs of adjustment continue to outweigh the expected benefits. If such perceptions persist as 2010 and 2020 loom closer, then APEC governments will need to consider entering into negotiations to resolve some outstanding issues, than to ratify a binding agreement to implement the outcome of these negotiations
They will then need to consider whether to allow some aspects of the APEC process to lead to binding, as against voluntary commitments, or to conduct the negotiations needed to meet the outstanding issues in some other forum.