Since the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol in the late 1990s, Canada and Australia have followed very different trajectories with regards to climate policy despite being both very high per capita emitters and having economies heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Despite initially rejecting the protocol, Australia has since joined the international regime and it is now implementing an ambitious national carbon tax. In contrast, while Canada was an early proponent of action on climate change, it is now the only industrialized democracy to have officially reneged on the treaty and it has failed to meet even its weak national targets. Nationally, the country has firmly rejected carbon taxation in favour of a more conventional regulatory response that has yet to fully emerge.
In both federations, the climate policies of sub-national states have been quite varied, with some jurisdictions clearly ahead of their national governments, and the politics of climate change have been marked by intense regional tensions, revolving mainly around the behaviour and influence of regions heavily reliant on fossil fuel exports (e.g. coal in Western Australia and Queensland, oil and gas in Alberta and Saskatchewan). Through a comparative analysis of these experiences, the paper will explore the impact that the evolving national policy framework in both countries has had on sub-national state policies and, conversely, the influence that territorial politics and sub-national initiatives have had on the trajectories of national climate policies. We will show that the dynamics of territorial and regulatory politics (Vogel) has meant that the Australian national framework has had a greater influence on the behaviour of states than has been the case in Canada, but that they have allowed greater sub-national differentiation and experimentation in Canada.
