A light at the end of the tunnel?

There have been a couple of positive movements over the last week over a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the current binding international framework on climate change:

GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, has reached an agreement on cuts in carbon dioxide emissions for both developed and developing countries and a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions. Although non-binding and not official government policy, this agreement is important because it includes a number of key US politicians, business leaders as well as politicians from the developing world and is explicit in looking towards an international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. It is, as the BBC's environment correspondent suggests, a hard bargain that is movement of sorts. That is at least something to take comfort in.

The Canadian parliament has passed a resolution to force its government (against its will) to return to trying to meet its Kyoto targets; German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that she will make climate change a priority at G8 discussions in the summer; and Tony Blair apparently wants to conclude his premiership with a climate change agreement and the transfer of climate-friendly technology to poorer countries.

I know that this is big and important stuff and I'm not underestimating the significance of the GLOBE resolution in particular. But I have this nagging feeling that we might have been here before (think World Trade Organisation and Hong Kong Dec 2005 summit) and I'm not quite holding my breath yet. Prove me wrong.