Overcoming Resistance to Carbon Trading: Lessons from Global City Experiences

Cities around the world are confronting climate change through strategies aimed at sustainability, resilience, and reducing carbon emissions. Among these, Carbon Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) have attracted attention as a market-based tool to incentivise decarbonization. Yet, efforts to implement ETS often encounter significant opposition that undermines their effectiveness. Drawing on case studies from Europe, Asia, and emerging experiences in the Global South, this paper identifies four primary sources of opposition: the public, political authorities, industries, and interest groups. Each group resists for distinct reasons, including concerns over fairness, economic costs, political ideology, mistrust of government, and perceived inadequacies of ETS design. The review further highlights strategies that cities and governments have employed to overcome these challenges, such as phased or voluntary introduction, transparent allowance allocation, robust monitoring and reporting, stakeholder consultation, compensation mechanisms, and revenue recycling. The analysis shows that while some strategies (e.g., transparency, public engagement) are broadly effective, others are highly context-specific, with successes and failures depending on local political and economic conditions. The central argument is that successful ETS implementation requires context-sensitive adaptation and sustained stakeholder engagement, rather than a one-size-fits-all model. By synthesising global experiences, the paper provides practical lessons for cities considering ETS as part of their climate change mitigation agenda.