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Electric air source heat pumps (ASHPs) appear to be a key technology for decarbonizing space heating in existing residential buildings, yet their current market share in much of North America remains low. To explore how the potential future ASHP market may differ from the present one, we use a subset of data from the Canadian Home Heating Survey (n = 461) to provide a comprehensive characterization of three market segments of British Columbian homeowners: Pioneers (heat pump owners), Potential Early Mainstream buyers (homeowners currently willing to purchase an ASHP), and Late Mainstream buyers (homeowners currently unwilling to purchase an ASHP). We assess variable associations with market segments according to the Attitude-Behavior-Context theory, which posits that pro-environmental behavior is shaped by attitudinal, contextual, and socio-demographic factors. We also compare how market segmentation changes before and after respondents receive technical information on different home heating systems. Relative to Pioneers and the Potential Early Mainstream (PEM), we find that the Late Mainstream (LM) are generally lower income, lower educated, less environmentally- and technologically-oriented in their lifestyles, less open to change, less familiar with heat pumps and home energy efficiency, more negative in their perceptions about heat pumps, and less aware and supportive of policies aimed at reducing residential emissions. We also find that after respondents read technical information about home heating systems, approximately 10% of heat pump non-owners shift from the LM to the PEM; however, within the PEM, there is little growth in high willingness to adopt.

En 2007-2008, la Colombie-Britannique a adopté deux importantes politiques liées aux changements climatiques qui ont constitué des premières en Amérique du Nord : une taxe sur le carbone applicable à presque toute l'utilisation de combustibles fossiles et un standard de production d'électricité presque 100 % « propre ». Dans cet article, nous décrivons ces politiques et nous les analysons à l'aide des critères suivants : réduction des émissions de GES, efficacité économique, faisabilité administrative et adhésion des citoyens. Nos résultats montrent que, d'ici à 2020, le standard de production d'électricité propre devrait permettre de réduire les émissions annuelles de GES de quatre à six fois plus que la taxe sur le carbone, mais que le coût moyen d'une tonne d'émissions de CO 2 ainsi éliminées est beaucoup plus élevé que la taxe sur le carbone à son niveau actuel. Par ailleurs, il est intéressant de souligner que le standard de production d'électricité propre recueille une adhésion plus élevée et plus constante dans la population, ce qui pourrait être dû au fait que cette mesure est beaucoup moins « visible » que la taxe sur le carbone.Mots clés : taxe sur le carbone, standard de production d'électricité propre, réduction des émissions de GES, efficacité économique, adhésion à des politiques, importance de l'effet d'une taxeIn 2007-08, British Columbia implemented two significant climate policies: the first broadly based carbon tax and the first almost 100-percent "clean" electricity standard in North America. We describe the key design characteristics of these policies and analyse them against the criteria of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, economic efficiency, administrative feasibility, and public acceptance. We find that the clean electricity standard is estimated to reduce four to six times more emissions per year by 2020 than the carbon tax, but at an average cost per tonne of CO 2 reduced that is significantly higher than the carbon tax at its current level. Interestingly, the clean electricity standard achieves higher and steadier levels of public acceptance, which might be attributed to its lack of visibility, relative to the carbon tax.