Policy‐makers are increasingly recognising that the promotion of more sustainable consumption patterns is an indispensable prerequisite for achieving sustainable development in the long term. Policy documents and action plans have been published, and a wide array of policy instruments has been implemented with the aim of reducing the environmental and social burdens of consuming goods and services. But what are the latest trends and innovative approaches in sustainable consumption (SC) policies? What could be learnt for future policy‐making? Based on an overview of European policy instruments and several case studies, the paper discusses instructive examples of SC policy instruments, in particular the Danish information campaign “One Tonne Less”, the Dutch tax incentive scheme “Green Funds”, the British “Red/Green calculator”, and the pan‐European internet platform “TopTen”. Important features of novel policies — such as adaptability and collective action — are identified, and recommendations for future policies are presented. The recommendations refer to the foundation of SC policies, to the specific approach taken, to the applied instruments, and to the proper documentation of the implemented policies.

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

Trust in the chairs of global negotiations is a decisive factor facilitating successful outcomes. When negotiators trust the chair, they allow her to go beyond her formal procedural role by acting as a mediator, fostering the reaching of agreement. Negotiating parties must consent to a chair assuming substantive mediation functions. They cede parts of their control over the process to the chair when they are confident that the chair is competent and acts in good faith and everyone's interest. In this article, we develop a detailed conceptualization of trust in chairs of global negotiations and demonstrate its impact in two cases of United Nations negotiations that aimed to deliver a universal deal on climate change: the failed 2009 round in Copenhagen, and the 2015 round that culminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

Capacity-building projects can be a vehicle for fostering policy diffusion. They should not, however, be considered as exclusively externally driven; the receiving jurisdiction’s receptiveness and leverage to steer the design of those projects can be crucial factors, shaping the process of infusing different external policy expertise and experiences into domestic policy design and implementation. This article shows that the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has played a key role in steering the capacity-building efforts of external financiers in the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading. The focus here is twofold: analyzing, on the one hand, the interaction among capacity-building projects financed by different external financiers, and on the other, the role that central actors and brokers can play in the complex structure of interacting projects.

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