This collection of seventeen articles stemmed from a conference held in Toronto in November 2007, so those responsible are to be commended for rapidly bringing the papers to publication release. No doubt the timeliness of the core subject matter—climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, energy policy and Canada's position in respect to these matters—served as a motivating reason. Responding to the Stephen Harper government's policy to seek a “made-in-Canada” approach by not rejecting the Kyoto Protocol but neither enforcing it, the thrust of the manuscript is to argue that Canada's approach to climate change needs to be “sensitive to both domestic priorities and global policy imperatives” (3), the notion of a globally integrated climate policy of the volume's title. It is not possible to comment on each of the articles given their number and diversity of sub-themes, and the complexity of their contents. I would be remiss, however, not to outline the book's sub-themes and its format of presentation.
Following an introductory article by the four editors stressing the need for a globally integrated climate change policy for Canada, the other articles are subdivided into six parts. Part 1 focuses on the urgent need for action, but consists of only one article; still, the theme of urgency underlies all of the other articles of the collection. The second part serves to deliver an international perspective through three case studies separately describing climate change policy of the European Union, the United States, and the rapidly developing states of China and India. This second part is also the only part that closes with a comment by one of the editors that relates the three articles to the book's general theme. Part 3 consists of three articles on the difficulties of governance globally in implementing the Kyoto Protocol; part 4 reviews, through three articles, the range of policy instruments that may be employed to deal with climate change in Canada; part 5's two articles examine specifically the link between energy policy and climate change policy in Canada; and part 6 presents three articles that consider the challenges and opportunities in respect to climate change policy in Canada.
The specific contents of these articles are primarily about international meetings and agreements, environmental economics, and the science and politics of climate change. Major developments and key terms are covered, including such international agreements as the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and an array of other meeting/agreements; the indicators of climate change (including increasing temperature, desertification, polar ice cap melting, sea levels rising), and the causes, rate and consequences of climate change; and the various policy instruments that may be employed (including regulatory limits, carbon tax, carbon trading, alternative energy sources, geo-engineering), and the relative merits and limitations of each instrument.
This brief overview cannot do justice to the intellectual richness to be found in this collection. Together, the authors deliver a solid mix of descriptive and explanatory analysis, and prescriptive suggestions for action. The individual authors brought to their collective endeavour solid credentials, primarily as specialists in international law and environmental studies, to produce a most authoritative factual account.
Though the manuscript may obviously be reviewed from different perspectives, the following comments address the question as to who is the intended audience. A person, for example, who approaches the book because of a genuine concern for climate change, but lacking a grasp of the science and economics of the subject matter and of the various international meetings and agreements, will find the book abstruse. The excessive use of acronyms in several of the articles is especially trying and undermines the collection's readability. Inclusion of a glossary of the most frequently used acronyms and the words to which they refer would have been most useful. Similarly, the text of the articles is often very technical in nature which again undermines the book's appeal to a broad audience. On the other hand, policy actors (both governmental and nongovernmental) in the “policy loop” of climate change, as well as professors, graduate and senior undergraduate university students—especially in international law, political economy, environmental studies, public policy, and politics and science policy—will find the book an essential source. For this specialist audience, the collection constitutes a definitive contribution to the literature on climate change in general and specifically in respect to Canada. Readers are able to pick and choose those articles of particular interest to them in respect to the multifaceted aspects of climate change policy.
Regardless of the audience, however, it is a shame that the editors did not integrate the collection more effectively. There is no concluding article to tie the articles together, nor does the introductory article make a serious effort to summarize or integrate the highlights of the contributed papers. As well, and most peculiarly, the articles in part 2 are followed by an integrative commentary by one of the editors but there is an absence of a similar closing commentary in the other parts. It is especially difficult to understand this lack of attention to integrating more effectively the articles, given the book's theme of a globally integrated climate policy for Canada.
