This paper provides an overview of the evolving climate-change strategies put in place by industrialized countries to combat climate change and to comply with their quantitative commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. It links past policy performance with the historical level of greenhouse-gas emissions and with indicators of policy performance, such as energy intensity and carbon intensity, between 1990 and 2000 It presents the emerging new and integrated method of climate-policy formulation and implementation based on, portfolio approach, where a mix of policies and measures are selected to help achieve the required emissions reduction. The paper outlines the portfolios of policy instruments used by the industrialized countries in their evolving climate-change strategies and in their approach to widening the scope and increasing the coverage of those policy instruments to all sectors and all gases. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.