Connecting climate governance in a fragmented regulatory landscape: linking emissions trading schemes

Emissions trading schemes have emerged as stable components in a fragmented climate governance landscape, yet the proliferation of such schemes raises critical questions concerning their design, the development of conflicting norms, and how such schemes might link. This opinion recognises the climate governance contribution of linkage between emissions trading schemes and identifies the fostering of complementarity between such schemes and pre-emptive prevention of the emergence of conflictive scheme design features as key challenges in the coming years. Linkage and other bottom-up institutional arrangements are advanced as building blocks offering the potential to connect climate governance initiatives in an otherwise highly fragmented regulatory landscape.