Making a market? Contestation and climate change

In the last two decades political contestation over climate change generally, and climate policy specifically, has been waged over the merits, design and implementation of market-based regulatory mechanisms. This includes emissions trading, carbon taxation and various voluntary measures. Emissions trading has been at the centre of national and international debates with the provision for emissions trading and other supporting `Flexible Mechanisms in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In turn, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was installed in 2005 alongside a range of smaller schemes by state and corporate enterprises mostly in OECD nations.