It’s been a long, hot summer,
and politicians across the continent are waking up to how important global warming has become for many voters.

It seems this year’s heat, along with the destruction left by hurricane Katrina last year, has put the public in a receptive mood for climate-change science, especially when it’s presented as persuasively as in Al Gore’s documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.

The phenomenon has made for some strange bedfellows. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair got together last month to trade notes on climate change, for example.

In Quebec, Premier Jean Charest has clearly taken note of the high level of anxiety relating to climate change and has subsequently staked out one of the toughest climate-change policies on the continent.

It remains to be seen whether the plan will help Charest’s Liberal government win an uphill re-election battle. But it has won plaudits from environmentalists and even grudging approval from the Parti Québécois opposition.

That’s quite a turnaround from earlier in the year, when the Liberal government had environmental groups at its throat over a plan to sell a piece of a provincial park to a friend of the party for a condominium development.

The positive reaction may be encouraging the federal Conservatives — who are hungry to build on their breakthrough in Quebec — to strengthen their own forthcoming Green Plan, which is expected this fall.

Under a six-year plan to reduce greenhouse gases, the Quebec government has said it will: impose a carbon tax that would force oil and gas companies to pay $200 million to finance other aspects of the program; adopt California’s emission standards for vehicles and raise building code standards to improve energy efficiency; mandate installation of devices in heavy vehicles that would limit their maximum speed to 105 km/h; contribute $130 million annually to the operating costs of public transit companies across the province; and invest $4.6 billion-$8 billion for capital improvements to public transit systems, including buses, metro cars and garage space.

Earlier on, Quebec also promised to pour billions more into developing its plentiful hydroelectric resources. The province also has plans to boost wind-produced electricity by 4,000 megawatts by 2010.

The goal is to meet Quebec’s target for reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol, regardless of what the federal government does about the treaty.

“We have no intentions of waiting for the authorization or the permission from anyone in order to act on reducing greenhouse gases,” Charest said in releasing the plan.

Not surprising, Quebec still wants money from Ottawa. With this plan, Quebec is aiming to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 10 million tonnes — and it wants the federal government to kick in $328 million to finance an additional reduction of 3.8 million tonnes to enable it to reach its target under Kyoto.

Polling data suggests that support for Kyoto is strong in Quebec, and some observers have suggested that an ambivalent attitude toward the treaty has hurt the Tories in the province.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has promised a made-in-Canada climate-change plan. But he has also said emission-reduction targets under Kyoto will be impossible to achieve.

Undoubtedly, Charest has turned up the heat on Harper with his government’s aggressive plan. The premier knows from experience just how politically profitable the environment can be for a government.

He was a member of the federal Progressive Conservative government that was helped to electoral victory in 1988 by its environmental commitments. Charest went on to become environment minister for three years, and he was in charge of implementing the original Green Plan, which encompassed more than 100 environmental protection initiatives.

Although it’s now another decade, perhaps a strong commitment to environmental protection can be an issue that helps deliver electoral success to both Charest and Harper. IE