A Global Turn to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading? Experiments, Actors, and Diffusion

The policy instrument of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading has gained prominence since the early 2000s. At the end of 2016, twenty-one distinct GHG emissions trading systems (ETSs) covering thirty-five countries were operating worldwide (ICAP 2017). China has announced the launch of a national ETS for the second half of 2017, which is expected to become the world’s largest carbon market. A number of other countries and subnational jurisdictions, including Thailand, Mexico and Oregon, are considering the adoption of a GHG ETS. Hence, it is increasingly important to improve our knowledge about the forces that shape the initiation, design, and functioning of such systems, whether internal or external to the jurisdictions. This includes the interactions among individual systems and the precise ways in which ETS policy diffuses. With the increasing spread of GHG ETSs around the world over the past decade, sufficient empirical cases and variation are now available to provide a good knowledge base, and these warrant a thorough analysis. This special issue of Global Environmental Politics contributes to our knowledge and understanding of the expanding turn to GHG emissions trading. In particular, we aim to investigate the role and detailed unfolding of diffusion processes in the emergence of various GHG ETSs globally, with a particular focus on the interaction between external influences and domestic dynamics within jurisdictions that newly design and adopt a GHG ETS. Since all GHG ETSs that have emerged so far have their own particular design, the global turn to emissions trading seems more complex than a simple policy diffusion account can explain. Domestic factors seem to be of great importance for understanding the growing adoption of ETSs in widely different jurisdictions.status: publishe