The EU as a frontrunner on greenhouse gas emissions trading: how did it happen and will the EU succeed?

Multinational Corporations and Emissions Trading:

“…In the EU, for example, building emissions trading as an institution has partly been an outcome of disagreement between industry and regulators how to reduce corporate GHG emissions, that is, whether it should be regulated with a 9 carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. In the 1990s, an EU-wide plan was launched to introduce a carbon tax to reduce GHG emissions, but this met with great resistance from industry and some Member States, because they argued it would incur additional costs and put competitiveness at risk (Christiansen and Wettestad, 2003). Building on their success in reducing emissions of similar trading schemes in the US (Kruger and Pizer, 2004), the resistance against a carbon tax paved the way for the political push to introduce emissions trading, which was more broadly supported by industry.…”

“…Building on their success in reducing emissions of similar trading schemes in the US (Kruger and Pizer, 2004), the resistance against a carbon tax paved the way for the political push to introduce emissions trading, which was more broadly supported by industry. BP and Royal Dutch/Shell, for instance, acted as institutional entrepreneurs by setting up internal emissions trading schemes (Christiansen and Wettestad, 2003).…”

Policymaking as collective bricolage: the role of the electricity sector in the making of the European carbon market

“…GETS was not the only exercise to fuel discussions. The governments of the United Kingdom and Denmark as well as a number of companies had run their own experimentations (Akhurst et al 2003;Braun 2009;Christiansen and Wettestad 2003;Victor and House 2006;Wettestad 2005). Despite technical differences among them, all these experimentations played a considerable role in the collective sense-making that was necessary to push further the policymaking process:…”

“…Its development countered both the European Commission's intellectual convictions and the interests of industrial stakeholders (Newel and Paterson 1996;Wettestad 2005). Despite abundant scholarly work in multiple disciplines (Braun 2009;Cass 2005;Christiansen and Wettestad 2003;Damro and Mendez 2003), the making of the EU-ETS still represents a conundrum yet to be explained.…”

Australia’s Carbon Tax: A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing?

“…Yet such taxes have often proven politically controversial and hard to implement (Christiansen and Wettestad 2003). In the area of public policy on climate change this has led to a preference for emissions trading due to its supposed competitive market like qualities (Lohmann 2006), and despite that approach having even more serious problems than taxes (Spash 2010).…”