Most Canadians support the Kyoto Protocol, even if they don’t know what’s in it. They support clean air and Kyoto’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But they expect government and industry to achieve the necessary efficiencies and are generally unprepared to sacrifice their SUVs or home heating habits to help achieve the Kyoto targets. Contributing writer Robin Sears looks inside the politics of climate change, including the “Kyoto implementation fiasco,” and looks ahead to the Harper government’s Clean Air Act and Green Plan II as a made-in-Canada alternative to unachievable Kyoto targets.

The politics of climate change: from one government to the next in this month’s issue of Policy Options.